The problem with making Faustian bargains in times of dire need is that the devil ends up owning one’s soul. That is what the US did when it advertised for militants to fight in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, many of whom later joined Al-Qaeda, turning their fury against its former American masters with devastating attacks on US soil.
Iraqi and Syrian insurgents, who embraced armed combatants regardless of their ideology or tactics, now regret that decision now they’re aware their former comrades-in-arms had no brotherly motives in joining the fight but are rather following their own ideological agenda.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that’s pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda is spilling blood in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon with an eye to establishing a regional caliphate. Formerly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the organization was founded in 2003 to resist the US-led occupation forces and was initially made-up of Kurdish-based Ansar Al-Islam militants affiliated with one of Al-Qaeda’s head honchos Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, killed by a US targeted airstrike.
ISIL’s precursor quickly became a magnet for foreign militants willing to blow up innocents to serve their cause. Indeed, over the years the group has killed thousands of Iraqis and coalition troops. When foreign forces withdrew, ISIL turned its sights on bringing down the Shiite-dominated Iraq government but alienated local Sunni populations, tribal heads and other insurgent organizations due to its brutal tactics and its imposition of ultra-conservative edicts on locals within areas under its control. The organization has no loyalty to any nation, has no respect for human life and recognizes no borders. Its objective is to foment sectarian violence with the aim of occupying areas of Iraq, Syria and, perhaps, even Lebanon to form an Al-Qaeda-ruled state. Thus, it is not only betraying the core principles of Islam — peace and tolerance — it plays right into the hands of the West’s divide and rule policies that have ignited the region for over a century.
In recent times, ISIL has been gaining in strength and expanding its bloody reach. Fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have taken over the city of Fallujah in the province of Anbar and are attempting to control Ramadi. Sunni tribes with no love for the government of Nuri Al-Maliki or Al-Qaeda are caught in the middle and are currently negotiating with the Iraqi Army, which needs their help with its cleanup operation. Whether such cooperation will be forthcoming is moot; there’s a precedent, but, nowadays, Anbar’s Sunnis feel marginalized and discriminated against and so might need some persuading.
Al-Maliki is bent on purging the area from “terrorists” and has requested US assistance. US Secretary-of-State John Kerry says this is Baghdad’s fight and his country has no intention of inserting “boots on the ground”, adding “We will stand with the government of Iraq…We are going to do everything that is possible.”
The inseparable Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have shot barbs at the Obama administration, saying in a joint statement, “While many Iraqis are responsible for this strategic disaster, the administration cannot escape its share of the blame. When President Obama withdrew all US forces — over the objections of our military leaders and commanders on the ground, many of us predicted that the vacuum would be filled by America’s enemies and would emerge as a threat to US national security interests. In truth, George W. Bush is the maestro who orchestrated Iraq’s unrest with his rush to invade on a pack of lies; a fact rightwing pontificators would prefer to gloss-over. Let’s not forget that prior to 2003, Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites were often friends, good neighbors and inter-marriages were not uncommon; moreover, Al- Qaeda in Iraq wasn’t even a twinkle in Osama Bin Laden’s eye.
The ISIL is also a plague on Iraq’s neighbor Syria where it has turned its weapons on opposition rebels. As the South China Morning Post reports, “Syrian rebels have united to kill and capture dozens of militants in a new ‘revolution’ against the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq.” A few days ago, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) executed one of ISIL’s commanders and there’ve been clashes around the cities of Aleppo and Idlib as well as towns close to the Turkish border. Capt. Ammar Al-Wawi, the Free Syrian Army’s Secretary-General has described ISIL as “a group of gangsters” whose sole aim is to “hijack the Syrian revolution.” ISIL has warned the FSA and other critical “moderates” to change tack; else it will permit the Assad regime to re-take Aleppo. Al-Qaeda’s hijacking of the revolution has caused the international community to think twice about delivering material support to insurgents fearing weapons might fall into terrorist hands.
On Saturday, the ISIL claimed responsibility for a car bomb in a southern Hezbollah-dominated suburb of Beirut, which has brought Lebanon to the edge of a precipice, and it has threatened to launch further attacks.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant is destabilizing Iraq, complicating solutions to Syria’s civil war and could potentially tip fragile Lebanon over the edge. It has even threatened to wage jihad against Egypt’s army and Christian population. No nation in the MENA region can be assured of escaping its destructive tentacles. It must be stopped!
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