Look who’s here

When asked whether Iraq was worth the consequences — in blood and treasure and torture — Donald Rumsfeld replied, ‘Time will tell.’ Having parried countless press conferences, this was a common Rumsfeld trick: defusing violence with vagueness. But there’s nothing vague about what’s unfolding in Iraq.

Eleven years after Bush and Co. barrelled in, and just three after they crawled out, armageddon has arrived. After ignoring them for years, the world has woken up to the gentlemen that form ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham — also known as the clunkier Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.



ISIS is a killing machine: a band of zombies that even al Qaeda wants no part of. In a supreme irony even for the Middle East, it seems the American invasion ended up making real what it set out to destroy.

Bush the Younger premised the invasion on three things: weapons of mass destruction, Saddam’s ties to al Qaeda, and Saddam handing weapons of mass destruction to said al Qaeda. When told Saddam denied all ties, it was Don Rumsfeld that replied with another cute vagueness, ‘And Lincoln was short.’

That the Ba’ath Party’s pan-Arab socialists had zero in common with the Salafi nihilsts of al Qaeda seems a finer point now. It would take millions of memos for the truth to become common: that the first, second and third were false.

There were no WMDs. There were no factories for WMDs (those turned out to be factories for WBs: weather balloons). There was no al Qaeda in Iraq — just the ones that showed up after the invasion. And they proved worse than any al Qaeda the Americans could have imagined.

Because al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), ISIS’s parent company, had one agenda: sectarian war. This they did by bombing shrines and massacring civilians, and wresting away a Sunni slice of Iraq. But such was the bloodlust, it horrified the Sunnis it claimed to stand for, and AQI was eventually pummeled in by its own constituents.

That would have been the best time for Nouri alMaliki, Iraq’s sour-faced strongman, to reach out to the Sunnis. He did not, and ISIS was born. The Islamic State has stuck to AQI’s business model: sectarian cleansing, and a recruitment drive that focuses on the excesses of a Shia government that has, in its own way, been brutal and stupid to its Sunni population. This is true of both Nouri alMaliki and the monster in Damascus, Bashar al-Assad (an Alawi).

It was, in fact, Assad’s frenzied killing campaign that made the Islamic State of Iraq stick ‘al Sham’ at the end and move into Syria. And as with Iraq, ISIS has proven the most brutal new arrival, not only attacking Assad’s men but also blowing up the rebels — for ISIS, everyone’s a heretic. Assad, meanwhile, gloats to the West that, with crazies like these, he’s their best chance.

And the West, well, the West’s tired of this story. The US has thrown its hands up — no way are they putting combat boots in quicksand all over again. Yes, the Middle East is exploding, and what’s being called ‘the Jihadi Spring’ has made it to a Jihadi Summer.

But isn’t that business as usual?

It’s not, firstly because ISIS isn’t your usual terror org. In less than a week, three cities have fallen to the Islamic State in a lightening advance — Fallujah, Tikrit, and now Mosul. Iraq’s second-largest city wasn’t even fought for: the army dropped their guns and made for the hills. The Islamic State proceeded to break open a jailhouse (1,200 prisoners) and shake down a bank ($429 million). They now stand the richest jihadi front in the world, with a proto-state that stretches all the way from Aleppo to Fallujah. And by moving for Baghdad, there’s no doubting ISIS has even wilder dreams.

Second, while the locals turned on AQI, ISIS has learned from its mistakes. It doesn’t help that Nouri alMaliki’s record with the Sunni minority is as awful as Saddam’s with the Shia. In a sickening indictment, Mosul’s population prefers ISIS, which also sets up inflatable rides and ice cream stalls for kids. Maliki is a failed PM.

Third, there’s the more obvious fact that extremists wreak extremism. Any reaction to Assad was bound to be as gruesome, but for inflicting sheer horror, ISIS still surprises — a group so over the edge, even alQaeda’s liberals have disowned it.

Assassination attempts on rival Sunni leaders include gunning down wives and children. Punishments for enemies include lopping off limbs, public beheadings, and — in a grisly innovation — crucifixion. In the Syrian city of Raqqa, where ISIS also holds sway, death sentences are rapidly read out at public roundabouts. Culling ensues.

‘It’s like a waterfall of blood,’ said a witness. ‘There are more and more executions and now the children watch like they are used to it.’ The last time they made a Stone Age statelet, it didn’t end well for anyone.

Fourth and worst of all, ISIS is the Muslim world’s latest sectarian fault line. The Middle East seems to be hurtling toward sectarian world war, if by proxy. For some romantics, it’s another chapter in the Arab-Persian tussle: ISIS ally (and old Saddam comrade) Izzat alDouri called on his men last week to break ‘the Persian-Safavid alliance.’ But the Ba’ath boss is oversimplifying.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are piling into Iraq to brace against ISIS, just as Iran sent in Hezbollah to rescue Assad in Syria. The ayatollahs are even considering common cause with the US against the jihadis, just as ISIS unites bitter enemies under its black flag: the Gulf monarchies and Saddam’s men. It’s complicated, to put it gently. But death is on either end.

The sectarian divide has begun crippling states. But between tyrant and terrorist, there’s no right side to choose. As for Pakistan, having flip-flopped enough on Syria, it may want to revert to the last Iran-Iraq war — praying for peace.

In any case, this is the loudest — and possibly last — alarm bell to act on our own spreading sectarian crisis. Places less volatile than ours have been consumed by the fire.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2014.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.