From Brian Whitmore, in The Atlantic: In the space of a year, Vladimir Putin has gone from being the pariah of Brisbane to being the star of Antalya. The contrast between last year's G20 summit in Australia and this year's in Turkey couldn't have been sharper. Then, Putin was browbeaten by Western leaders for annexing Crimea and supporting separatists in Donbas. Now, everybody wants to talk to him about teaming up to fight Islamic State militants. Then, Putin's humiliating early exit from the summit made international headlines. Now, everybody is talking about that photo of him huddling with U.S. President Barack Obama.
At the Brisbane summit, which took place months after the downing of Flight MH17, the vibe was all about tension between Russia and the West. At the Antalya summit, which came just days after IS’s terror attacks in Paris, it was all about unity. “Putin has changed the G20 agenda from being dominated by Ukraine to having been taken over by Syria,” Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote recently.
“A number of Western powers now want to fight with Russia against ISIS, ignoring everything else about Russia’s policies. That Russia has escalated its military aggression in Ukraine in the last weeks apparently does not matter much to the West.”
So is Putin about to get what he has always wanted? Is he now a step closer to forging that “broad international coalition against terrorism” he called for in his speech to the UN General Assembly in September? In his UN speech, Putin invoked the spirit of World War II, calling for an alliance “similar to the anti-Hitler coalition” that united “a broad range of parties willing to stand firm against those who, just like the Nazis, sow evil and hatred of humankind.”
He also invoked the Yalta conference, which laid “a solid foundation for the postwar world order.” And he lamented that the end of the Cold War left the world “with one center of dominance.” And all this was no accident.
Putin wants to relive 1945 and exorcise 1991. He wants to resurrect the glory of the Soviet victory in World War II; and he wants to bury the humiliation of the Soviet defeat in the Cold War. He wants a temporary alliance of convenience with the West in Syria, one that will end Russia’s international isolation and get sanctions lifted. Then he wants a modern version of the Yalta conference, in which Russia and other great powers will divide up the world into spheres of influence. And of course he wants a free hand in the former Soviet space.
“Russia’s war with the West will not end as long as these new principles are not introduced by ‘internationally binding commitment,’” Slawomir Debski, editor- in-chief of the Russian-affairs website Intersection, wrote in a recent column.
Putin clearly thinks that the Nov. 13 Paris attacks give him a window of opportunity to advance these goals.
It is probably no accident that just days after the Paris attacks, and shortly after Hollande’s call for unity, Moscow finally acknowledged what it had been denying for weeks: that the October 31 Metrojet crash in Egypt was an act of terrorism. Putin pledged to pursue those responsible “everywhere, no matter where they are hiding,” adding that Russia was “counting on all of our friends during this work, including in searching for and punishing the criminals.”
And right on cue, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said: “The terror attacks that Russia and France have just faced affected the whole world. The terrorism expansion is indeed a global challenge. And it requires a united response.”
To kill ISIS, we have to fix and stabilize Iraq and Syria.
From Yousef Munayyer, in The Nation: Paris is just the beginning. The devastating attacks claimed by ISIS that killed scores in the French capital last week are a sign of things to come and a clear indication that efforts to combat this scourge have been a failure thus far.
The “global war on terror,” launched by the Bush administration after Sept. 11 and continued by the Obama administration, has been an abject failure by any objective measure. Terrorism today is far more prevalent around the globe than it has ever been, in large part because of some of the policies of the American “war on terror.” With ISIS metastasizing around the globe, we seem further away from the objective than ever. …
When it comes to the question of ISIS in particular and broader terrorism in general, Western counter-terror strategy has focused on the bubbles and not the flame. While significant resources have been invested in intelligence and homeland security, too few have been invested in resolving the conditions that generate terrorism. In fact, too often, the West has contributed significantly to those conditions. In the case of ISIS, no event did more to create the conditions for its emergence than the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent dissolution of the Iraqi state.
Today France is facing an all-too-familiar quandary. In the wake of the unprecedented attacks, the French government is increasing airstrikes on ISIS positions in Syria. …
Turning down the flame that is causing ISIS to bubble over into Western capitals will require a very different approach. Currently, the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Jordan the UAE, Iran, and others have conducted strikes of some sort against the terror group. … Despite this, ISIS continues to pose an asymmetric threat because the group has established a territorial base in Syria and Iraq that serves not only as a base from which to plan attacks, train, and procure resources, but also as an inspiration to ISIS franchisees around the world who see the so-called “state” as a greater achievement than anything Al Qaeda ever pulled off, and thus as the beginning of the fulfillment of their perverse dreams.
Eliminating that territorial base cannot be done with airstrikes, nor can it be done with Western boots on the ground. One of the great lessons of the Iraq War was that while powerful nations can occupy the territory of others and attempt to repress insurgencies, there will always be a day when the occupying power leaves — and everyone knows it, including the insurgents.
The only option here is a difficult one: restoring the territorial integrity of Syria and Iraq by ending the Syrian civil war and the broader, regional Saudi-Iranian contest that feeds it.
Belligerents in the war have each tried to use ISIS to serve their narrative. Both the Assad regime and the rebels claim that only by eliminating the other can ISIS be defeated. In the meantime, ISIS has entrenched itself in the vacuum created by the war, and Iran and Saudi Arabia happily continue a fight to the last Syrian.
In the last two weeks alone, ISIS has aimed spectacular attacks at very pro-Assad Russia and Hezbollah, and at very anti-Assad France. The costs, to both sides, of not reaching a negotiated end to the war continue to rise.
The reality is that the Assad regime cannot govern a post–civil war Syria. It can only rule with an iron fist, and that is a recipe for continued war. Even the Russians and Iranians know this, and they must know that over time, propping up Assad will become increasingly costly and unsustainable. The Syrian people also deserve so much better.
At the same time, a change in the regime must be managed, and this is particularly difficult in the midst of war. A complete collapse (we are almost there) of state institutions would leave Syria in an even more vulnerable position — ISIS barbarians are already at the gates.
The parties that have backed both sides in the war, unable to agree on what sort of transition to support, have opted for the status quo — a continuance of war — rather than budge on their demands. This only means that more Syrians will die before the parties inevitably have the same discussion again months down the line. Now, however, as French and Russian bodies are added to the toll claimed by this war, perhaps the priorities and calculations in these capitals will begin to change.
Ironically, it may be ISIS’s own actions that bring global players together to end the war that ISIS has thrived on. For the sake of Syrians — the primary victims of ISIS — and for the sake of the victims of ISIS everywhere, let us hope that this is the case.
Liberals claim conservatives are playing into ISIS’ hands — not true.
From David Harsanyi, at The National Review: What the Islamic State wants is to kill infidels and build a caliphate. And perhaps it has wishes that it will one day sincerely regret. There are innumerable instances throughout history when groups or nations initiated wars that they would disastrously lose. Maybe if terrorists target civilians because they want to be martyrs, we should help them achieve that life goal. Call it a win-win if you like.
But the “that’s-what-the-terrorists-want” canard tells us something else about how progressives view this issue. For example, they misrepresent or misunderstand what the Islamic State desires because they are often unwilling to concede the most obvious motivation of terrorism: faith. And they misrepresent what conservatives believe for political reasons.
The Islamic State doesn’t hate refugees as a matter of principle. Maybe the Islamic State hates people who were once allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad or other Shiite terror groups. Now, I would hate them, too, of course, but that’s exactly what the Islamic State wants, I bet.
If Americans want to be more vigilant — or even stop the influx of refugees from Syria and Libya completely — it doesn’t mean that people hate anyone. We’ll see what polling says on this topic, but the majority of Americans are already rightfully concerned about how well Islam comports with American society. This is not a condemnation of liberal ideals; it is a concern driven by a desire to preserve those ideals, and that is exactly what the Islamic State doesn’t want.
If we were not to take more refugees, we’d supposedly be playing right into the Islamic State’s master plan. We would be perceived as being Islamophobic (though the preponderance of refugees admitted from this crisis so far have been Muslim) and thus we’d be at fault for creating more refugees. But we take far fewer Christians fleeing the same war under nearly the same circumstances. Will those Christians also join death cults and start blowing up children? If not, what in the equation is different?
I guess talking about that is exactly what the Islamic State wants. And about this nonsense about conservatives wanting the same “clash of civilizations” that the Islamic State does — maybe we are in a global conflict with an illiberal theology that too often manifests in violence. Certainly, it’s not a war with all Muslims.
In fact, Republicans are the ones incessantly pressuring political leaders to affix qualifiers such as “radical” and “extremist” to the word “Islam.” It is the Left that refuses to make those distinctions, but then it is also the Left that turns around and accuses conservatives of waging war against all Muslims.
Obama’s gradual strategy may be all that will work.
From Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark, in Foreign Policy: What do we know about how to destroy the Islamic State? Recent history teaches plenty about what not to do in the aftermath of last week's terror attacks in Paris. Most Americans, and certainly most Europeans, intuitively understand that the United States overreacted to 9/11. The George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, after all, eventually gave birth to Daesh — the so-called Islamic State — and in the course of Washington's misbegotten war on terror, Americans undermined many of their civil liberties.
That has not stopped a chorus of voices in Washington, and elsewhere in the United States, from demanding that the country’s fears again trump its values. President Barack Obama, fortunately, has so far resisted changing his containment strategy against Daesh, refusing to organize an outright invasion of Syria. (And to his credit, he has warned Americans against hardening their hearts to the plight of Syrian refugees.)
Obama’s strategy may not produce a quick victory. But it’s important to note the president is doing more than merely buying time. Obama has settled on a set of policies that, however modest, represent the only option for eventually defeating this criminal mafia.
Quite obviously, the root of the problem lies in resolving the Syrian civil war. But there is no obvious or easy solution. The United States should not put American troops on the ground to conquer and occupy the territory held by Daesh. That would win the battle, but lose the larger war for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. Amid such discontent, another group would likely rise to take Daesh’s place.
It would take tens of thousands of Arab boots on the ground to sustainably eliminate Daesh from Syria — and even such a victory would entail a long and difficult occupation for which there are few plausible occupiers.
In Syria, we have virtually no local allies. Not the bloody regime of Bashar al-Assad. Not the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front fundamentalist Muslim rebels fighting both the Assad regime and Daesh. While the Kurds fight the terrorists headquartered in the Syrian city of Raqqa, they do so only to preserve their own autonomy and aspirations for independence. The anti-Assad Free Syrian Army seems inconsequential to the battle. And any “moderates” in Syria seem to be fleeing to Europe and the refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey. …
Some have suggested a NATO invasion force could do the job, but the optics would prove disastrous for American interests: That organization is perceived in the Middle East as a front for Washington, and any NATO-led occupation would stir up anti-colonial sentiments. …
Given all of this, President Barack Obama is right to oppose facile and demagogic cries for war. He is right to be calmly petulant in the face of panic and hysteria. He is right to defend his administration’s policy to slowly contain Daesh, to wear it down with pin-point strikes on their leadership and their cash flows from the sale of black-market oil. If Daesh is a criminal mafia then the correct response is essentially a police action, buttressed by the methodical collection of human intelligence to identify the men who make Daesh work. It may not be glamorous, but it is the only smart policy.
Yes, Daesh must be defeated. But that group is the expression of a psychologically suicidal ideology that must ultimately be defeated in a war of ideas. It’s worth remembering that Daesh has very few adherents; most Sunni Arabs aspire to humanitarianism. Eventually, jihadi nihilism will lose its competition with the values of our evolving global civil society. But in the meantime, Washington would be better off encouraging Arab countries to eventually join the fight than submitting to the temptation to put U.S. troops into a ground war.
Unfortunately, our own domestic political theater may compel us down a less rational path. Obama’s measured approach may not survive the recent murders committed by Daesh followers in Paris, Beirut, and Sinai. Even this president may soon find it hard to resist bipartisan demands to “do something more.” If not in this administration, then likely during the next one, the United States may well do what Daesh wants by blundering into another Middle Eastern war. If so, as so often before, we would not have learned from history.
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