I still cannot believe the feebleness of performance that is being brought to bear in dealing with a crucial international cause, namely the fight against terrorist organisations. Like others, I thought that perhaps the ambiguity was deliberate, a form of camouflage for measures and arrangements to take the enemy by surprise. Or perhaps that vagueness is a way of gaining time until all the preparations are in place for the campaign to end terrorism. On the other hand, it has also been suggested that the ambiguity is not the reason for the poor performance. Rather, the reason may be found in the flagrant contradictions between the statements and positions of many political officials, military leaders and others connected to the plans to fight the Islamic State (IS) group, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and its sisters. WAR OR NO WAR?: Ambiguity and contradiction parade side by side in the plan that President Barack Obama has drawn up for dealing with the terrorism in Iraq and Syria. It is not at all clear whether we are headed for a war or a series of actions that do not combine to mean war. The plan describes itself as phased and gradual. In one of its formulations it consists of three components: aerial bombardment, the creation of a multinational alliance, and sending 475 officers and soldiers to northern Iraq in the capacity of trainers and advisors. Those officers and soldiers will not be authorised for a combat mission. Yet, as the plan is worded, their chief function is to “carry out a counterterrorism campaign.” According to another formulation, the components of the plan consist of aerial bombardment and furnishing allies with intelligence support in “a war against terrorism”, providing humanitarian aid, and “performing defence duties against ISIL attacks.” So, are we on the path to a war? If not, what is the form of the fight against terrorist organisations? President Obama has said that he will not lead the US to war and he has emphatically denied that there is a state of war. And yet, in the US and abroad, Obama, himself, has suggested that he believes that we are in the midst of “a part of the war against terrorism.” In other words, there's a war on. Certainly the Americans and others are gearing up for war. Military historians of the future will face the task of conceiving of another term pther than “war” or “lead-up to war” to describe this current state of intense tension and anxiety in international relations as armies, fleets and missiles are being mobilised and as military guards, coast guards, seaports and airports, and police in towns and cities are tightening their patrols and moving onto the alert. Meanwhile, Obama insists that there is not a war and pledges that there will not be one. Obama says that “this war” is not a war because it is a “war” to protect the American people. The statement sparked quite a bit of censure because it was as though he had admitted that all of the US's previous wars were not to protect the American people. Another proof cited by Obama's advisors and Obama himself that the US is not at war or will be at war is his pledge that “there will be no boots on the ground.” Which is to say, without ground forces deployed you cannot use the term “war.” I can see why the US president is reluctant to use the word “war.” Declaring a state of war requires approval of Congress and constant congressional interference in the course of the war. Obama's predecessors acted similarly. Perhaps some will recall how Truman, in 1950, denied that he was preparing for war in Korea. He said that the US was undertaking a policing operation in the framework of the UN. That “policing operation” lasted three years and US soldiers and officers are still over there today, more than 60 years after Truman gave the go-ahead for that operation. WHO IS THE ENEMY?: Meetings are being held in one city after another — Jeddah, Paris, New York, Cairo and Newport — to discuss the new terrorist situation in the Arab Levant. There was no similar flurry of meetings to discuss the terrorist situations in Nigeria, Yemen, Kenya or Somalia, even though the enemy is the same. Or at least that is how I understand it. I have yet to come across a single clear, explicit and unambiguous definition of that enemy that can cause all these powers to come together when it grows active in the Levant yet fails to produce the same effect when it grows active in Nigeria or Egypt. The enemy, according to Obama, is no more than “a small group of killers who managed to capture the attention of the entire world.” He refers to IS, of course. Yet as small as it is, the threat it poses is “unique” and it is because of that unique threat posed by IS that the president decided to reengage the military in Iraq. Then, in the midst of the haze surrounding his plan and its aims he tells us that the US is intervening in order to “stand with the people who fight for their own freedom.” He says this about people who are fighting IS and its kin who had come to Syria right before his eyes and with his approval because they were there to “fight for freedom,” and who had obtained all the support and funding they needed from countries that have just joined the coalition against them. Does this mean that the enemy was once a kind and gentle ally who was fighting for freedom before turning into a brutal monster opposed to freedom? Or is it a special brand of enemy among a host of enemies? Or could it be that the circumstances require the existence of an enemy so that alliances and coalitions can be forged to oppose it, so that funds and assets can be marshalled, so as to furnish an excuse for reorganising the ranks of the countries in the region in accordance with new categorisations? I am particularly struck by the state of confusion in the US press and diplomacy when it comes to writing about the history of the recent phase of the political leadership in Washington. Obama, other members of his administration and historians have proclaimed a victory over Al-Qaeda during the global war against terrorism. I cannot help but to ask whether it is not the right of the US's allies, at the very least in order to ensure the quality of the performance of the 50-member coalition that is being assembled, to admit frankly and clearly that the US, and not Obama alone, did not score a victory in the war against terrorism and it was not victorious in the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. They should also recognise that the US, in its bumbling and self-contradictory way, is probably dragging the world and the Arabs in particular into a new round in a war in which it has lost all preceding battles, because it has not identified clearly and boldly who that enemy is, what the nature and sources of strength of that enemy are, and the parts that various international and regional agencies and powers have played in giving rise to and supporting that enemy. THE PROBLEM WITH THE ALLIES: I believe that there is a near universal consensus among the US's allies, both its traditional ones and prospective ones, that they are not convinced, this time, that the US has an absolute right to steer and command or that it has the ability to perform these functions. For my part, I can understand the soundness of this new logic in international relations. It is pretty obvious that the US has not come up to the mark in the lion's share of the international issues in which it engaged in recent years. Its allies in the Middle East, for example, are probably more aware of this fact than others having spent decades waiting for the solution that the US promised to deliver while preventing them from exploring other possible solutions. They spent a whole year watching the meagre if not negative results produced by Secretary of State John Kerry from his shuttling between the Palestinians and Israelis. Kerry failed without a doubt, just as Washington has failed in its leadership performance and its exercise of the right to leadership. This comes on top of its political and military record during the past decade which, as we suggested above, raises grave doubts about the US's ability to achieve a definitive victory in any important issue it engages in. We can still sense the dissatisfaction and coolness in Europe and elsewhere in reaction to the US's leadership of the West in its latest confrontation with Russia. The same applies to the coalition that is currently in the making. As I see it, this is the only way to account for the sluggish half-hearted Arab response to efforts to bring major Arab countries aboard the coalition. In fact, I was struck by the recent peak in the generally indirect but sometimes open attacks against US policy in the press, and at the official level, in the Arab world, with some going so far as to accuse Washington of trying to undermine and dismantle Arab armies. These are the armies that the US needs at the moment for the fight against IS and its sisters. Arab experts have not concealed their worries over the US's return to Iraq and its choice of that area as its arena for carrying out the war plan. They are not convinced by the demands for change in the regime in Baghdad voiced by some Arabs. The situation throughout Iraq is not stable enough to convince other Arabs to risk money and lives in a war on the ground in that war torn ally. At the same time, few in the Arab world are capable of understanding the relationship between the coalition and the Syrian regime. We have grown weary of trying to decipher the codes of US-led joint Arab intervention in a war in Syria where everyone is fighting everyone else. I believe that Egypt will not jeopardise a good degree of the stability it had won by taking part in carrying out a plan against an enemy abroad that has not been identified and defined with sufficient precision while the “enemy” at home is occupying its greater attention. It will not risk intervening as a member of an alliance that lacks cohesion and mutual trust between the participants and the command, and between the participants themselves. I think that Egypt has no desire to jeopardise its future for the sake of a plan whose success or failure will produce radical changes in the geographical, political and economic maps of the region. It is certainly not comfortable with the conflicting views present in US foreign policy circles and, above all, US policies on the Middle East. THE AMERICAN COMPLICATION: It looks like Obama will get what previous US presidents have been accustomed to getting, namely his own war. He might continue to deny that it is a war or underplay its importance. Or he might delegate most of the duties to Arab and non-Arab allies. However, he will still go down in history has having obtained a war bearing his name, a war that fits his circumstances and modest aspirations. The verbal threats issuing from the “enemy” are consummately evil. Yet confronting that threat requires only low-risk means. There are to be no land forces, no presence on the ground. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the “war” is that it has no timeframe. It began as open-ended, remained open-ended and will stay open-ended as long as the regional order is in the process of taking a new shape. In all events, war, regardless of what shape it assumes in the region and at this particular time, always raises the unknown as well as expectations. Some US experts realise that this war will inevitably differ from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which US military leaders were able to cover up the details, complications, military disappointments and confusions between military and political decisions. The war against IS will, for the most part, be in full exposure. It is to take place in the Middle East that is perpetually open and often exposed. Also, US public opinion is still discussing the expenses of the two previous wars, which exceeded $1.8 trillion, and the part these wars played in American decline. Nor can we afford to ignore another fact, which is that the region is perched on the volcano of the Arab Spring where all the signs are conflicting and confusing and where the results are still being forged on the fires of violence, lack of trust and an uncertain return to earlier eras. Some are of the opinion that IS is an embodiment of the general disappointment throughout the region in the positions of government and ruling forces and centrist religious forces, both of which fought and continue to fight the Arab Spring revolutions. What escapes neither the eye nor the ear is that the US and other Western countries and the Arab ruling regimes are dealing now — and will be dealing in the future — with a “different Arab person”, even if that person appears unconcerned, uninterested or unenthusiastic. There is another problem that US security experts are trying to skirt around. It has to do with arming and training Arab brigades to fight in the war against terrorism. Another way to put this is that once again the US is trying to “manufacture” new terrorists who will be carrying the label “antiterrorist brigades.” It is an old weapon that the US has tried to use before and it proved to be a double-edged one. One of those edges inflicted some very deep wounds in the US and its allies. There are many thorny knots. But to me the foremost is the question of monitoring and tracing the flow of money that feeds the terrorists. This is one problem that is bound to grow more complicated if the international financial crisis continues, the blockades of Russia and Iran continue, and if serious pressures begin to be exerted on Gulf Cooperation Council countries to compel them to rein in their funding operations for religious organisations of all stripes. ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS: Most of the alternatives that are under discussion in both the West and the Arab region are both logically and practically flawed, as they ignore many transformations that have occurred and developments that are taking place daily. Nevertheless, there are proposals out there that I had never once imagined would inspire serious discussion. I have heard friends and colleagues, both in Egypt and abroad, discussing the following ideas. The idea of dispensing entirely with US armies, plans and allies and turning instead to brigades of mercenaries hired out by private firms. In the opinion of those friends and colleagues, the alternative will ultimately prove less costly and be free of exhausting political strings and pressures. After all, those companies and their staffs have no ideological end but to make money, which is available, and those mercenaries do not lack the necessary ferocity to deal with the beasts of IS and its sisters. The idea of encouraging a fundamental change in how certain traditional regimes work and think so as to lead those countries to conviction in the need for an ideological war whose aim is to put paid to the designs of extremist and takfiri thought and to turn millions of preachers obsessed with causes that are opposed to modernisation, development and religious moderation into productive human beings. They are speaking of leading or stimulating a comprehensive Arab and Islamic revolution for religious modernisation, a revolution that is centuries late in coming. The idea that the solution will come through a “great national awakening” which, in this case, means setting into motion a new phase in the Arab nationalist movement. The hope of these dreamers is that someone will emerge in the Arab world to revive the positive features of the nationalist movement, blending them with the positive aspects of the world's contemporary movements. The writer is a political analyst and director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
