THE world is on high alert. France is in a state of war after Daesh targeted Paris on Friday night killing and injuring hundreds of innocent civilians. This was the boldest and most coordinated attack by Daesh terrorists against soft targets in the heart of Europe. The perpetrators were mainly French Muslims and others including a Syrian immigrant who had arrived in Europe recently. The reverberations of these attacks, a European 9/11, will be felt for years.
The threat of Daesh is now a global one. In less than a month the radical terrorist organization was able to strike targets well outside traditional areas under its influence in Iraq and Syria. The downing of a Russian jet over Sinai, the Beirut bombings and now the Paris carnage prove beyond doubt that while the organization is constantly being hit in Syria and Iraq, its ability to strike back anytime, anywhere constitutes a new danger that requires a new multifaceted strategy.
The Paris bombings cast their shadows over the Vienna talks on Syria on Saturday and the G-20 meeting in Antalya a day later. There was a fresh conviction that fighting this global menace requires a new approach to finding a political solution for the Syrian crisis. But the bombings also raised questions about the options that the anti-Daesh coalition must entertain to weaken and finally defeat this menace. It also underlined the need to point the finger to culpable states that continue to support radical militants and who have allowed thousands of foreign fighters to arrive in Syria and Iraq.
For now efforts to reach a political solution on Syria must go hand in hand with the search for a new strategy to crush Daesh in the long run. In Vienna, the United States and Russia, in addition to others, agreed on a road map that would pave the way for a political transition that includes a cease-fire, initiating talks between the Damascus regime and the opposition, writing a new constitution and culminating, 18 months later, in presidential and legislative elections. The fate of President Bashar Assad remains a bone of contention. In addition, agreeing on a joint list that defines the moderate groups fighting in Syria will prove difficult.
But as the Syria support group examines possible solutions, the fight against Daesh must continue. More than a year of coalition airstrikes have failed to defeat the terrorist organization. Without ground forces it will be difficult to dislodge the militants and while in Iraq the army and the Peshmerga are in the forefront in the war against Daesh, with mixed results, the situation in Syria is different.
Russian airstrikes in Syria have targeted Daesh and other groups. Moscow’s main aim is to help the regime reclaim lost territory even if that meant hitting anti-Daesh militias. There will have to be a major shift in strategies both by Russia and the US-led coalition.
A joint ground assault may be the best option to defeat the militants but it raises questions about the fate of liberated areas. It could also derail any understanding on a political path to end the Syrian crisis.
Away from Raqqa, Mosul and Ramadi, the Paris bombings raise serious questions about Europe’s ability to absorb hundreds of thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers amid fears that Daesh militants may infiltrate waves of refugees. The bombings will have a direct effect on European policies, open borders, right-wing and conservative movements and attitudes toward millions of Muslim citizens. It raises more questions about assimilation versus integration in Europe by Muslims and why second generation European Muslims leave their countries to join the so-called Daesh caliphate while harboring such hatred toward their native lands.
Fighting Daesh will require a combination of more than one front. There is a need for a global and regional coalition to confront religious extremism at home and abroad. Aside from military and security measures, all of which will have some repercussions, there is a need to fight the extremist discourse that has inspired and attracted young Muslims. King Abdallah of Jordan has likened what is going on today to a third world war.
In many ways it is becoming one. Each and every country will have to address the root causes of religious extremism and the abhorrent use of violence.
This war will take a long time to win. In Europe there will have to be a serious examination of the reasons that drive young Muslims to join wars in faraway parts of the world, including socioeconomic factors. In the Arab world, the rise of religious extremism must be tied to the series of failures to build egalitarian societies.
The Paris bombings present a rude wake-up call that in today’s globalized world the matters of security, regional stability, social and economic realities are all tied together and that modern-day terrorism, in the form of Daesh, recognizes no borders.
