Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor: Why has our planet become savage/Raghida Dergham: ISIS’s arrogance will accelerate its demise

Why has our planet become savage?
Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor/Al Arabiya/November 24/15/

These days I find myself in a permanent state of shock, horror and confusion. We live in a world where human life is devalued, where barbarism, racism and bigotry are the new norm. Watching the news is depressing. Desperate people fleeing conflicts finding all doors barred. Women enslaved and abused and children’s bodies seen mangled by shrapnel. And who would have thought that Paris, the City of Lights, would ever go dark, the army would be deployed in the streets or that a government decree would be issued silencing anyone who disseminates theories at odds with the government line as “a conspiracy theorist”. I won’t be surprised if an Orwellian-type ‘thought police force’ is established. People have questions, but aren’t getting answers and that’s the problem.

I’m angry too that so many fingers in western capitals are pointing at Islam as the cause of all evils when my faith, one of peace and tolerance, has been hijacked by creatures without souls. When I listen to statements from the mouths of American politicians I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. Donald Trump has vowed to close all mosques and force Muslim Americans to carry special identity cards. What next? Will they be told to pin green crescents on their lapels in the same way the Jews of Germany had to sport yellow stars? Many of his Republican rivals are using the vilification of Muslims as a vote-getting ploy. Likewise Britain, France and Belgium are planning the closure of certain mosques and community centres. Muslims are being asked to disassociate themselves from terror although they are the ones who’ve suffered most from terrorism over the years.

Also, Syrian refugees risking their lives to reach Europe have become pariahs overnight. Rather than falsely blame Muslims for the rise of ISIS, there may be other shoulders on which at least some of the blame should fall.A Rhode Island state senator, Elaine Morgan, is calling for Syrian refugees to be placed in camps “segregated from our populace”. “The Muslim religion and philosophy is to murder, rape, and decapitate anyone who is non-Muslim”, she says. Presidential hopeful Ben Carson compares the refugees to “rabid dogs”. All of this hate on the part of politicians merely because fake Syrian passports were deliberately planted close to the bodies of suicide bombers in Paris.

A few questions
In all honesty, I don’t know what to believe any more. Like so many others, I need answers to these perplexing and very troubling questions:
• Why was ISIS permitted to expand over great swathes of Syria and Iraq? According to Fox News, declassified Pentagon documents dated 2012 obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act “predicts the rise of ISIS and the establishment of a caliphate”. In this case, why did Obama say in September 2014 that its rise took the U.S. by surprise? • Is there any truth to statements from the President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to the effect that the self-ascribed ISIS Caliph Baghdadi, alleged to be formerly known as Simon Elliot , was trained by the Mossad? It wouldn’t be the first time. Morten Storm, a convert to Islam, reveals in a book that he was formerly undercover agent for western intelligence agencies tasked with infiltrating Islamist organisations.

• Why was ISIS’s de facto capital Raqqa permitted to carry on business as usual under U.S.-led coalition airstrikes? And as was quoted in the Washington Free Beacon and elsewhere, Rep. Ed Royce, the Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee complained that “the pilots come back to talk to us, they say ‘three-quarters of their ordnance we can’t drop, we can’t get clearance even when we have a clear target in front of us’?” Is he right?
• Why did it take so long for the U.S. to bomb convoys transporting ISIS stolen oil? And when they were following Russia’s intervention, why, according to the Wall Street Journal, were fliers dropped alerting the drivers to abandon their trucks before they were hit? Which states are buying that oil via third parties? Are there banks laundering the group’s income from oil, gold and stolen artefacts?
• When the British terrorist “Jihadi John” and the head of ISIS in Libya, Wissam Najm Abd Zayd Al-Zubaydi, were so easily pinpointed by surveillance satellites and assassinated, why is it that Baghdadi is so hard to locate and why weren’t highly visible convoys of the terrorists’ SUVs struck?
• Which country or countries are supplying ISIS with heavy weapons? And why are the Kurds and the recognized Libyan government battling ISIS being deprived of such weapons?
• There is a video of President Putin telling journalists at the recent G20 summit that ISIS is being financed by businessmen from 40 countries including those from G20 member states, adding that he provided examples “based on our data”. If he’s correct then, why aren’t those concerned being tracked down and arrested?
• Why did Israel open its hospitals to treat injured Al-Qaeda and Nusra Front fighters, as revealed by the Wall Street Journal? Similarly, the Turkish newspaper Sunday’s Zaman quotes a nurse working in a hospital in Mersin saying she’s sick of treating ISIS fighters. The Washington Post asserted it was told by ISIS commander, “We used to have some fighters – even high level members of ISIS – getting treated in Turkish hospitals.” If that’s so, what was the reason for treating monsters, who execute children, bury women alive and place men in a wire cage to be drowned, with such compassion?
• Who are the so-called ‘moderate rebels’ the Obama administration is backing after they’ve been grouped together under the new banner “Victory Army” and are reports that they are fighting alongside Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra accurate?

Why is it that President Obama and David Cameron shirk from branding the Muslim Brotherhood – the ideological forerunner of all Takfiri groups – as terrorist?
Early last year, an alleged British lobbyist for the Muslim Brotherhood was invited to meet President Obama at the White House. In February this year, a Muslim Brotherhood Judge was pictured making the four-fingered Rabaa sign at the State Department following his meeting with officials and when White House spokeswoman Jan Psaki was questioned by reporters she appeared to show that she had no issue with the photograph – a poke in the eye to the Egyptian government.

This month, however, lawmakers in both the House and the Senate are pushing for a bill to be passed that would declare the Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

I don’t have access to insider intelligence but let me put it this way. When the pieces of the jigsaw are fitted together something doesn’t smell right. After Paris, the world is gung ho to exterminate ISIS. France is cooperating with Russia to bomb them mercilessly. Yet Obama says they are contained and his strategy is working even as they threaten to turn the White House black, announce New York and Washington are next and are believed to be developing chemical weapons.

You couldn’t make this up!Charles Krauthammer writes in The Telegraph that while France is creating a coalition to destroy ISIS, Obama “responded to Paris with weariness and annoyance. His news conference in Turkey was marked by a stunning tone of passivity, detachment and lassitude, compounded by impatience and irritability at the very suggestion that his Syria strategy might be failing.” Rather than falsely blame Muslims for the rise of ISIS, there may be other shoulders on which at least some of the blame should fall. It’s time they were exposed.

ISIS’s arrogance will accelerate its demise
Raghida Dergham/Al Arabiya/November 24/15/

A shift in the attitudes of the major powers and powerful regional actors is inevitable after the Islamic State group (ISIS) showed the whole world that the scope of its international activities has expanded well beyond Iraq, Syria, and the Arab countries. ISIS targeted Russian citizens and interests, downing a Russian passenger jet over Sinai. ISIS then terrorized Paris, with a crime that appeared to be jointly planned and executed between Belgium and Syria. ISIS threatened to stage attacks in New York and Washington next, and it is possibly in the process of staging attacks in other European, Asian, or Gulf capitals.

U.S. President Barack Obama has clung on to his strategy in Syria, stressing that there would be no U.S. troops deployed to fight ISIS. However, he provided intelligence to France to conduct intensive air raids on ISIS in Syria, in retaliation for the Paris attacks, which may have also targeted French President Francois Hollande present at the time in the stadium that was attacked. The French president was determined to tell his U.S. and Russian counterparts that the attacks were a declaration of war on France, therefore requiring coordination with both NATO and Russia to stage an effective political and military response, also in cooperation with Middle Eastern nations.

There is an international shift precipitated by ISIS’s arrogance, as it boasts of its ability to infiltrate various countries. ISIS and its affiliates have expanded the scope of their plans, in a way that suggests its ambitions and ideology do not stop at establishing a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, but has global plans as well. This destructive arrogance is likely to engender new counter-strategies and a serious global war on the terror industry. The proliferation of terrorism to the European heartland, with such intensity and infiltration, could also accelerate urgent military and political efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis, especially with regard to the regional powers. Yet the new strategies will not be limited to Syria and its Turkish, Kurdish, Saudi, and Iranian dimensions. To be sure, Egypt too is at the forefront of these events, along with Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon.

Last week, Turkey hosted the G20 summit. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemed reassured by the clear enhancement of the crucial relationship between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar during the Vienna talks on Syria’s future, the latest round of which were held a few days before the G20 summit in Antalya. Turkey may ultimately get an international green light to establish safe zones in northern Syria, as this could help stem the flow of refugees to Europe. But there is a big difference between safe zones and no-fly zones. The latter requires military deployment by the countries imposing it, while the former has fewer requirements. Ankara could also gain the departure of Bashar al-Assad, as this issue has practically become a subject of consensus, Assad being both a catalyst and a magnet for terrorism. As the international community is resolved to defeat terrorism as a priority, the United States, France, and even Russia will not accept for Assad to be the stick in the wheel.

Turkey’s lost bet
However, Turkey seems to have lost its bet on its ability to turn the United States against the Kurds. Washington is determined to continue and step up its direct support of the Kurds, including in Syria, as they have fought fiercely against ISIS and are indispensable. In addition, there are some in U.S. circles who are encouraging the U.S. administration to foster financial ties with Kurds by purchasing Kurdish Iraqi oil directly not through the Iraqi central government. What course of action will Ankara pursue vis-à-vis U.S.-Kurdish relations?

Some in Washington believe the U.S. administration can give Turkey guarantees that its support of the Kurds will not reach the point of blessing the establishment of a Kurdish state between Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. Some believe Turkey cannot continue to be both part of the problem and part of the solution in the context of the growth of terrorist groups in Syria, and hence will be forced to make concessions. Turkey will continue to have influence over the Syrian opposition. However, this influence is weakening in tandem with the growing overt Saudi role in bringing together the Syrian opposition, in coordination with both Turkey and Russia. The Syrian opposition, which was absent from the Vienna meetings, won from the negotiations a timetable and a place in an international political process with a ceasefire as its starting point. The Syrian opposition won a direct Saudi engagement, along with a Saudi-Turkish-Qatari insistence on Assad’s departure and an implicit Russian agreement to eventually abandon Assad.

Russia’s timetable
Russian-Saudi relations are developing steadily. Moscow hopes to launch a political process to resolve the Syrian crisis early next year. The 18-month time table proposed by Russia for change in Syria could be affected by the military timetable imposed by this week’s developments, but sources say it should not span more than 4 months because of intense international mobilization and because Russia wants a strategy to exit Syria within this period.

The Russian-Iranian relationship, according to other sources, is tense, because some in Moscow believe Iran has implicated Russia in Syria. Qassem Soleimani, the key figure in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, is said to have persuaded the Russians during a visit to Moscow a few months ago that the regime in Syria was on the verge of collapse. Therefore, Russian intervention was needed to restore balance and secure interests, Soleimani is said to have argued, and told the Russian leadership that Iran-backed forces such as Hezbollah would be able to turn the tide on the ground with Russian air cover. However, the sources continued, Russia has found itself bombarding from the sky while the promises on the ground fizzled out because of Iran’s limited capability. Now, Russia is determined to extricate itself from the military quagmire in Syria, which would leave Iran alone implicated with its soldiers and proxies.
Iran appears reassured. It is touting an alliance with Russia and Western powers to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

It sits at the table of drafting Syria’s future in Syria. And it gears up for having the sanctions on it lifted pursuant to the nuclear deal. However, Tehran is implicitly upset because it has no seat the G20 table, while its rival Saudi Arabia has a key place in the summit, which undermines Iran’s position. Iran is isolated in its insistence on Bashar al-Assad in Vienna, against consensus over isolating Assad. And even if Iran is playing the Assad card for its domestic audience, it must realize that it will remain excluded from making decisions on Syria’s future as long as it clings to Assad. Tehran must also be aware that the Vienna process places it under the microscope on at least two levels: First, by defining who are the terrorists, foreign fighters, and oppositionists in Syria.

Indeed, demanding non-Syrian forces to withdraw will affect Iran and its proxies, and Tehran will not be able to demand that its militias or advisers remain in Syria. Second, Tehran is aware that it is violating Security Council resolutions 1737 and 1747 that prohibit Iran from deploying forces and arms directly or indirectly outside its borders. Iran must know that if the United States or Britain choose to expose these violations, this could delay the lifting of the sanctions. Washington and London are currently turning a blind eye along with Russia, China, France, and Germany, to preserve the nuclear agreement.

However, any state in or outside the U.N. Security Council can raise Iran’s violation of the resolution adopted by the council under Chapter Vii with the Sanctions Panel. If the countries opposed to Iran’s support for Bashar al-Assad in power develop a cohesive strategy, they can seriously challenge Iran’s violations at the U.N. At least, Washington has the ability to threaten Tehran with obstructing the lifting of the sanctions if it wishes, and this is the course of action it should pursue to influence Iran’s obstructionist attitudes. The Security Council will handle important tasks to accompany the Vienna process.

It will be responsible for issuing a resolution on a ceasefire and establishing international monitoring thereof. It will also be in charge of authorizing military action in Syria, possibly under Article 51 of the Charter which gives states the right to act unilaterally in self-defense. The council is also supporting the mission of U.N. Envoy Staffan de Mistura, who is tasked by the Vienna process to prepare political committees and oversee the drafting of the constitution and the elections.

The United Nations has a candidate for the post of prime minister, who will have expanded executive powers during the transitional period, while the presidency is set to become a ceremonial post. Its candidate will be someone well suited to undertake the crucial burdens of that phase, and one who is acceptable to the major powers and regional states as well as senior figures in the Syrian regime. There are two other candidates being discussed, one who is based outside of Syria, but it is not clear how acceptable they will be. There is also a list of names of who is acceptable and who is vetoed by the senior figures in the regime. But overall, the political process seems to be in an advanced stage.

An absent party
The party that remains absent from the process is Egypt. According to sources, Cairo has attempted to exploit contradictions at a time when no one can afford this, which is why relations with Saudi are currently tense. Cairo’s discomfort stems from Turkish-Saudi-Qatari solidarity, which Egypt believes runs contrary to its interests in fighting the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, Riyadh is upset by Cairo’s attitudes on Syria. Nevertheless, all sides including Washington realize that it is crucial to restore Egypt’s role as a strategic ally, whether in the war on ISIS inside Egypt or on ISIS in neighboring Libya.

However, to achieve this, President Sisi must rectify his regional policy mistakes and scale back some of his domestic measures. Libya, meanwhile, is an international mistake that must be repaired as part of the strategy on fighting terror, before it fall completely hostage to growing terrorist groups there. In turn, Yemen is an ideal candidate for attracting al-Qaeda and similar groups. It is therefore extremely important to create a favorable climate for the Saudi-led Arab coalition to end its military operations there. This is both an international and a Saudi responsibility. The time now is right to think of Yemen from the angle of crushing terrorism before it becomes a fertile ground for its resurgence. This requires helping the Arab alliance exit Yemen, to refocus resources on fighting ISIS instead of being caught in a spiral of attrition.

There is an international shift precipitated by ISIS’s arrogance, as it boasts of its ability to infiltrate various countries. ISIS was never a local terrorist group, and was always a global organization that has cost Syria dearly. Perhaps ISIS now has overplayed its hand and has invited is own doom, even if after a while. However, the concern here is that the international players would commit additional mistakes aside from the costly one they made, namely: That they decided to fight terror “there” so that they do not have to fight it in U.S., Russia, and European cities. This was an unforgivable sin that destroyed Iraq and Syria, and is now backfiring against innocents.