Graeme Wood has an article in the Atlantic that’s getting lots of play, explaining that “we” have been getting those ISIS guys all wrong, that what they really want is a big battle in Dabiq, a place in Syria, to fought by the Muslim faithful against the armies of “Rome,” a battle that will ultimately culminate in the Muslim version of the Apocalypse,something that, I suspect, will have little in common with the “Rapture.” Along with long discussions of the group’s ultra-fundamentalist dogmas, Wood has this to say:
If we had identified the Islamic State’s intentions early, and realized that the vacuum in Syria and Iraq would give it ample space to carry them out, we might, at a minimum, have pushed Iraq to harden its border with Syria and preemptively make deals with its Sunnis. That would at least have avoided the electrifying propaganda effect created by the declaration of a caliphate just after the conquest of Iraq’s third-largest city. Yet, just over a year ago, Obama told The New Yorker that he considered ISIS to be al-Qaeda’s weaker partner. “If a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” the president said.
It’s just that, a year ago, no one realized that there was a “vacuum” in Iraq. It was assumed that the billions of dollars and man hours expended by the U.S. in developing the competence of the Iraqi security forces had brought them to a point where they could function with a modicum of effectiveness, an assumption that proved to be entirely unfounded. That being the case, what would be gained by pushing Iraq “to harden its border with Syria and preemtively make deals with its Sunnis”? If the Iraqi government had been half-way competent, it would have done this on its own and ISIS would have been defeated. Urging a bone-headed, ineffective government to be smart and effective is a policy unlikely to meet with success. Obama’s NBA metaphor certainly makes him look like a dumb-ass, but ISIS’ potency is really a reflection of Iraqi incompetence, not U.S. failure to grasp the intricacies of ISIS ideology, which I frankly suspect to be very much of a moving target.
Wood ends his article by quoting George Orwell on fascism, which, he said is
psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life … Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people “I offer you a good time,” Hitler has said to them, “I offer you struggle, danger, and death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet … We ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.*
Well, before we get too far gone with the appeal of “passion” versus boring reason, let’s not forget that we hedonistic capitalists defeated both the fascists and the communists. Capitalism works, while “Sharia” does not, not unless it’s sitting on several billion barrels of oil, and, even then, only until the oil runs out.
Afterwords
Fareed Zakaria has a nice column explaining why the ISIS brand of Islamic fundamentalism, which in fact is quite similar to what is practiced in Saudi Arabia, is not the group’s “secret.”
*Orwell even said that he had “never been able to dislike Hitler.” I’ve never had that problem.
