Three realities of the Isis conflict

President Francois Hollande attends Memorial Service for victims. Demotix/ Yann Korbi. All rights reserved.There are
three sectors of the conflict with Isis – the war zones of Syria-Iraq, the
regional states which provide most of the backing for the wars and where most
refugees are based, and western Europe where refugees now aim to come and whose
cities Isis is attacking.

There are
also three levels of the conflict. The armed conflict is now spreading from the
war zones to Europe. The civilian experience of harm is massive in Syria-Iraq,
the refugee camps and the Mediterranean, and now shocking in Europe as hundreds
are massacred. Finally, in the political-media conflict, Isis uses mass death
for propaganda purposes while western governments try to produce responses that
will satisfy their populations, amid saturation coverage and moral panic.

We cannot
ignore how the intersecting wars in Syria and Iraq involve local armed actors
as well as Isis: the Syrian, Iraqi and (covertly) Iranian states, other Syrian
armed groups, Iraqi Shi’ite militia and Hezbollah, and Kurdish forces. Wider
international interventions are not mainly anti-Isis, but support local actors:
the Iraqis and the Kurds against Isis and the Syrian regime (the west), and
Bashar al-Assad against the armed opposition including Isis (Russia).

Domestic audiences

Interventions
are driven as much (if not more) by political-media strategies for domestic
audiences. Hence David Cameron’s UK government prioritised the drone
assassination of Mohammed Emwazi, following Barack Obama’s example with the
killing of Osama bin Laden. Even The
Guardian allowed the ‘Jihadi John’ story to swamp the simultaneous Kurdish
breakthrough in cutting the road between Raqqa and Mosul, Isis’ two main
cities.

Both
stories were, of course, eclipsed by Paris. Many hype the latest massacres as a
turning point in the conflict. They certainly represent a significant turn in
Isis strategy. Paris was the first western capital to be hit since London in
2005, and now it has happened twice in a year. It follows the downing of the
Russian airliner and massacres in Ankara and Beirut, which have not had the
same western political impact.

The French
bombing of Raqqa will do little to stop future attacks, but it helps François
Hollande look like he is rising to the occasion. Sadly, his declaration of
‘war’ has unmistakeable echoes of George W Bush’s after 9/11, which set the
scene for the fateful invasion of 2003, to which the birth of Isis can be
traced.

What intervention helps?

Clearly
Isis needs to be stopped. Intervention that actually helps manifestly more
humane forces can be justified. The problem is that Iraqi and even Kurdish
forces have been implicated in atrocities – there are reports of Sunni homes burnt as the Kurds
liberated Sinjar – while Assad is causing far greater suffering than Isis. A progressive
response needs to focus on the level of civilian harm in all sectors and on all
forms of harm. We need a comprehensive strategy to prevent and alleviate
civilian harm.

Western
bombing itself causes civilian casualties, as the US killing of patients and
staff in a Médicins sans Frontières hospital in Afghanistan reminded us. Such
‘accidental’ massacres are a systemic part of the contemporary western way of war, based on
‘risk transfer’ which protects military personnel (in their bombers and drone
command centres) at the expense of civilians.

Some
western missions successfully avoid civilian death, as France seems to have done so far in Raqqa.
However their de-facto Russian allies – French and Russian navies are now
cooperating – are less careful, having apparently caused serious casualties in
Raqqa and bombed hospitals in other opposition-controlled areas.

No ‘clean’
war is on offer, whether by western bombing or from local allies on the ground.
British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is right, therefore, to be cautious about
military action. However that caution needs to be set in terms of an active
response to Isis atrocities, which he has not achieved.

A
progressive response needs to focus on the level of civilian harm in all
sectors and on all forms of harm. We need a comprehensive strategy to prevent
and alleviate civilian harm.

Airstrikes
may have a role in supporting Kurdish and other anti-Isis fighters, but they do
not offer a direct answer to the threat to civilians in European cities. The
answer is less dramatic than explosions in Raqqa: better intelligence and
policing and joining them up within and across European states.

In Europe,
moreover, the largest number of much more helpless victims of Isis and Assad
are those arriving to seek sanctuary. The left should shame governments of
wealthy countries like Britain which refuse to take their share of those who
arrive in our continent. As the French former captive of Isis, Nicholas Hénin, has pointed out, nothing will
upset Isis and undermine the credibility of their recruitment as much as
effective compassion for their Muslim victims. Nothing will
upset Isis and undermine the credibility of their recruitment as much as
effective compassion for their Muslim victims.

We must
also, however, address the situation of refugees still in the Middle East. We
must make their situation more tolerable (as Cameron claims to be doing – but
we could do more). But we must also provide safe routes to asylum in Europe –
our international duty and the only genuine alternative to drownings, much as
governments which fear the UK Independence party or the Front National will try
to avoid it.

Asylum, settlements, and safe zones

Finally, we
must address the situation of civilians in the war zones. We should explore the
scope to create and defend generally safe areas, in conjunction with Kurdish
and other non-Isis oppositionists, although it is not clear where this could be
done. We should increase international attention to their plight and
continually emphasise that leaders of the Syrian regime, Isis and other forces
need to face charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the
International Criminal Court. Since even the worst political settlement would
probably be less awful for civilians than the present war, we must seek such a
settlement. In that context, but not militarily, western governments do need to
work with Russia.

If Paris is
to be a turning-point, let it be one in which we finally come to terms with the
situation which not only Assad, Russia and Iran, but also western allies Saudi
Arabia, Qatar and Israel have helped to create – and indeed the west itself
with ill-conceived policies in the Middle East over many decades. At the
political level, let us respond by prioritising civilian wellbeing all round
–this, rather than any domestic political posturing, must be the sole
motivation behind measures that are genuinely needed to support the overthrow
of Isis in Syria-Iraq.

This article was first
published by the Polity Network on December 1, 2015.