The World After Paris Terror Attack
By Sazzad Hussain
18 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org
The Paris terror attack by ISIS has proved once again the extant that extremist could go to create mayhem and destruction in order to show their determination and strength. The so called Islamic State or Dash (as they call in Arabic) is a bunch or international thugs, mostly from the Arab diaspora of the western world, that romanticize of heightening the glory of Islam as a force. The gadget savvy and otherwise quite geek these youngsters are always like the punks of the early 1980 with a perverted psyche of humiliating the established civilized society with brutal acts—an outlet for expression and assertion for their life of exclusion and economic hardships in the west. And as an outcome of such an attitude the IS has been killing and executing people in the most sadist forms—beheading, burning, impaling, drowning and so on. Their easy access to the social media has made the outfit super heroes for many followers across the globe and their support by several countries has embolden them to strike at distant locations, far away from the deserts of Syria and Iraq. The Paris attack bear all these elements and the unanimity of several world leaders following the strike to end terrorism has created a sense of optimism globally.
Those who are aware of the great Middle-East conflict involving oil, Israel and Islam well know the western involvement there. The west, in order to ensure uninterrupted supply of oil has been supporting Israel’s injustices towards Palestinians and terming its opponents as terrorists. Secondly, the west has also promoting hard-line Sunni Islam, the Wahhabi or Salafism against democratic voices in the Gulf monarchies and against Shiite Iran since the Cold War period. They have also been not allowing secular Arab republics, though repressive like all their monarchic Gulf allies, to sustain. The Iraq war (1991 and 2003), intervention in Yemen, Libya and now in Syria are the proof. First they invaded Saddam’s Iraq in 2003 for false allegation of WMD, destroyed its social structure, though shaped under a repressive measure, divided the country on sectarian line among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds and opened the floodgates of post 9/11 Al-Qaeda to enter through the border of Jordan, another western monarchic ally. Since then Iraq has been a killing field. When the winds of Arab Spring swept the region in 2011, the west only supported the transit of power from dictators to elected democracy in Tunisia. In Egypt, a strong western ally, the western support was lukewarm, delayed and full of reluctance. The pro-democracy demonstrations in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia were brutally cracked down and the west was silent. But when the people took to the streets in Tripoli and Damascus, the western response was overwhelming. The NATO, spearheaded by British Premier Cameroon and French President Sarkozy bombed Libya to aid the Islamist rebels to overthrow Gaddafi, west’s long-time foe. Sadly for Gaddafi, his later transformation and establishment of normal friendly relations with the western nations and his vehement opposition to Islamist terrorism could not protect him. They also send arms and money to rebels in Syria to overthrow Assad, a friend of Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah and another deterrent for Israel and Sunni Arab monarchies. NATO member Turkey opened its borders with Syria to send international recruits to fight against Assad under an Islamic banner. The story of ISIS thus began this way.
Abdelhakim Belhadj, an Al-Qaeda operative who was expelled by Gaddafi in 1980s and brought back to Libya in rendition in 2004, became a key figure of anti-Gaddafi Islamist militants backed by the west. It was from there that international recruits started moving towards Syria through Turkey to become ISIS. The west has also aiding Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nushra militants in Syria. These extremists are supported by oil-rich Gulf monarchies like Qatar and Saudi Arabia with arms and money simply because they are fighting against Assad who is a Shiite. Similarly Saudi Arabia are also bombing Yemen for last three months not because to stop its civil war but to push back the Hauthi rebels, who are also Shiite. In this way, the core issue of Islamism or political Islam in Middle-East—the Palestinian cause is being left into the lurch and instead a fight within Islam, empowered by easy oil wealth is gaining momentum and the west’s inability to understand this simple paradigm is now taking its tolls. The lack of unequivocal stand against terrorism, the selective branding of terrorism, the “good Taliban/bad Taliban” classification are all contributing towards the consolidation of outfits like ISIS and the Paris strike was a culmination of such a stand by the west.
Emboldened by the west’s duplicity, ISIS has been killing Kurds, who are also Sunnis, Christians, Yezidis and Shiites in neighbouring Lebanon. A day before the Paris attack, they threw a bomb on to a funeral procession of Hezbollah in Beirut killing 48 people. The west’s response was again lukewarm and there was no Cedar printed Lebanese flag for Facebook profiles to mourn or condemn the attack. This selective western response to terror was the reason why forces like ISIS felt so pampered and encouraged to create mayhems like the Paris attack.
It is also hard to believe that how the ISIS penetrated the security and intelligent cover of France, one of the best in the world, to create so much destruction. However, this time the west seems to have learnt a lesson and become united to fight and root out the evil called ISIS. For the first time the west and Russia is joining hands to fight the common enemy. The bombing of a Russian passenger jet has drawn Moscow further deep into this war whose air power has already targeted the ISIS inside Syria. This will enable Assad to be in power, the last secular bastion in the troubled Middle-East. The former NATO commander Admiral James Stavridis also echoed the same strategy in BBC’s HARDtalk recently. Let’s hope that the Paris tragedy will be the D-Day for our war against terrorism.
Sazzad Hussain is a freelancer based in Assam , e-mail:[email protected]