Bombing
raids on Islamic State targets in Iraq may just make things worse.
Once again, a U.S. president vows to eliminate an extremist
militia in the Middle East to make the region, and Americans, safe.
And that means it’s time again for a reality check. Having
failed in its bid to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the
United States is still trying to dismantle both organizations. Over the course
of 13 years of war, that mission has spread to Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia,
Libya, Mali, and West Africa, as militant groups on two continents have adopted
the al-Qaeda brand.
Contrary to normal logic, the White House wants everyone to see
this failure as a badge of expertise. As President Barack Obama vowed in an interview on
Meet the Press, fighting the Islamic State forces “is something we
know how to do,” mainly because we’ve been battling similar groups “for five,
six, seven years.”
Years of air strikes, drone-operated killings, and covert
operations have brought neither peace nor safety to the region and its people.
Estimates of the death tollfrom
U.S. attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia alone range from 3,100 to 5,400,
including 570-1,200 civilians. Precise figures are impossible to obtain since
the strikes remain classified, and investigating drone attacks is difficult and
dangerous work.
Obama promises that his plan to combat and destroy the Islamic
State forces will also address the underlying political problems in Iraq and
Syria. Such claims are tenuous, at best. What’s far more certain is that all
military campaigns have unintended consequences, some of which don’t appear for
many years afterward.
The Islamic State itself is largely a product of the U.S.
invasion and occupation of Iraq. Dismantling the Iraqi state and rebuilding it
along sectarian lines produced an authoritarian government dominated by Shiite
Islamists who ignored minority grievances and often suppressed dissent with
bullets. The result? An entrenched civil war with no end in sight.
Although U.S. media coverage of the violence in Iraq subsided
following the withdrawal of combat troops, sectarian attacks against civilians
have continued. Car bombs, street assaults, and kidnappings have transformed
Baghdad into a city segregated by
sect. Large parts of the country, including the Sunni majority areas
in the west and north, feel abandoned by the central government.
These political tensions are the reason why the Islamic State
has found some support in the areas it has taken over. Bombing Islamic State
targets — especially where they are embedded in communities and liable to cause
civilian casualties — carries no promise of changing this dynamic for the
better. It’s more likely to change it for the worse.
The Islamic State is indeed a danger to the people of the region
and to efforts to resolve the political conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Yet the
past decade has shown, again and again, that American firepower doesn’t solve
these problems. Even if Washington manages to help destroy this al-Qaeda
spinoff, the grievances that give rise to groups like it can’t be bombed out of
existence.
The campaign formerly called “the War on Terror” has only proven
to perpetuate both war and terror. No amount of rebranding or wishful thinking
will change that reality this time around.
Amanda
Ufheil-Somers is the assistant editor of Middle East Report, published by the Middle East Research and Information
Project. MERIP.org
Distributed via OtherWords. OtherWords.org
Distributed via OtherWords. OtherWords.org