25 August 2016

Which War, Mr Smith?

The wars in Syria aren’t primarily about Isis.

By Neil Tidmarsh

This week, Labour leadership candidate Owen Smith said that we must engage in talks with Isis to try to end the Syrian war.

“The Syrian war”?  Which war did he mean, exactly?

Did he mean the civil war – the main war?  No.  He can’t have done.  That’s between the government forces of Assad and the rebels who are trying to overthrow his regime.  Isis isn’t really involved in that one.  Won’t make any difference talking to Isis, even if it listens.  Isis is almost an irrelevance here.

Did he mean the proxy war between Russia and Turkey, backing either side in the civil war?  No, I guess not.  Again, Isis is not involved.

Did he mean the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, again backing either side in the civil war?  No, I guess not.  Again, no Isis involvement there.

Did he mean the war between Turkey and Kurdish militants, spilling out over the Turkish border?  No, he can’t have done.  No Isis involvement.

The war between Kurdish militants (defending and enlarging their territory) and Syrian Arabs?  No.  No sign of Isis there.

The war between Kurdish militants and the Assad regime?  No.  No Isis there either.

The war between moderate, secular rebel groups and hard-line, militant, Islamist rebel groups?  No. Isis largely absent from that one, as well.

At this point you’re probably shouting  ‘Don’t be so disingenuous!  Isis!  The war against Isis!  That’s clear enough, isn’t it?  Come on, nobody likes a smart-arse!’

Well, ok, perhaps he means the war between Isis and the government of national accord?  Oh, no, he can’t – that’s in Libya.  Talk to Isis there and it won’t make any difference to Syria.

Oh, right, the war between Isis and the government of prime minister Haider al-Abadi?  Oh, no, that’s Iraq.

Ok.  Let’s admit that Owen Smith meant the war against Isis in Syria when he said “the Syrian war”.  My point is that the war against Isis in Syria is only one of several in that tragic country, and the most peripheral one at that; Isis is simply an opportunistic land-grabber here, sneaking in and declaring its “state” while everyone else was too busy with their civil wars to do anything about it. Resolving it will not resolve any of the others. And it’s only one theatre in a wider, international war against Isis.  Of all the Syrian wars, it’s also the least complicated, the most straightforward (the bad guys in this particular conflict are easily identified) and the least problematic.  And it’s the only one where talking is pointless and unnecessary.

Pointless because, of all the belligerents, Isis isn’t interested in talking.  Almost all the participants in the Syrian conflicts are taking part in the peace talks which have continued, on and off, for the last year.  Isis doesn’t have a place; it hasn’t demanded a seat at the table, it doesn’t want a seat at the table.  Isis isn’t interested in the peace talks.  What it wants is violent, bloody, apocalyptic conflict.  Remember Isis’s response when the remarkable ‘vicar of Baghdad’ Andrew White invited them to talks over Sunday lunch when Isis militants first showed up in his parish?  “Yes, we’ll come” they replied, “but we won’t talk. We’ll chop off your head.”

Talks are unnecessary, as well as pointless.  Of all the wars in Syria, the one against Isis is the only one which isn’t bogged down and stale-mated.  Isis is losing. Everyone – rebels, regime forces, Kurds, Turkey, Russia, Iran, the USA and its western allies – is fighting against Isis.  Isis cannot win.  It is being pushed back day by day.  Recently it has lost the cities of Manbij and Palmyra, and Kurdish fighters and Arab forces are independently advancing on the town of Jarablus at this moment.  Experts predict that its very capital, Raqqa, will be taken within the next year.  In Libya, Isis is being driven from its stronghold of Sirte.  In Iraq, it has been driven from Fallujah, and the advance against its major city of Mosul has begun.  It is running out of cash, food and fighters.  Why talk, when defeat for the bad guys in this particular war is in sight?

Perhaps Mr Smith was thinking about a different Syrian war.  Perhaps he meant the main war, the civil war.  Perhaps he meant to say that we should talk to Assad (rather than Isis) to end the war.  Now that would be an interesting and controversial and useful suggestion, worth debating.  But I don’t know.  I’m just making an assumption.  I’m just confusing an already confusing issue.

Jeremy Corbyn used his rival’s odd statement to call into question his fitness for high office.  I agree with Mr Corbyn there, though I suspect on different grounds.  I imagine Mr Corbyn’s objection is a moral one – it’s wrong to negotiate with an organisation as patently evil as Isis.  I would argue that Mr Smith’s statement shows a level of ignorance and naivety which should preclude anyone from political office.

Ever since it became involved in Syria, Russia has been trying to fool the rest of the world into thinking that there is only one conflict in Syria; a single conflict between Assad’s regime and the rest (Isis and everyone else all lumped together). Russia’s pretence that all the rebel groups (which span the whole spectrum from Islamist militants fighting for sharia law to secularists fighting for democracy) can be lumped together with Isis is an attempt to brand them all as terrorists and so disguise Russian attacks on all Assad’s enemies as part of the international war against terror. This cynical simplification, this distortion, is a smokescreen for Russian airstrikes against civilians and moderates.

Mr Smith seems to have fallen for this kind of simplification.  He should know better.

 

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