Tyranny vs Anarchy
Simon Jenkins prays in aid an old Muslim saying in this recent opinion piece from The Guardian which warns its reader - "Better a thousand years of tyranny than a year of anarchy".
Now if you ask me this is a load of old codswallop or 'cod philosophy' if you like, because it's not as if these are the only two choices facing people as they try to make sense of the world.
So how about - "Better still a thousand years of peaceful coexistence rather than a year of tyranny, anarchy or fascism."
Unless of course Simon is arguing that Muslim countries are inherently unstable and more suited to tyranny and dictatorship as a form of government.
But I don't think so which is why the vast majority of Muslims living in the UK, for example, would prefer to live here in preference to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran and so on.
Granted there are some people in the UK who want to leave and become 'jihadis' in Iraq and Syria, but they have little to offer the great march of civilisation other than occasional, and to my mind rather debatable, cries of 'God is Great'.
Britain’s focus in Iraq should be humanitarian, not military
We should always help people whose lives are blighted by wars, but we should not pretend to fight those wars for them
By Simon Jenkins - The Guardian
'In Iraq we can bomb convoys, but for how long? The humanitarian prerogative should be absolute.' Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/AFP/Getty Images
David Cameron wants Britain to stay out of Iraq. “We are not going to get involved … no boots on the ground … no sending in the British army.” Assuming he means it, he is right. He is right to focus Britain’s response to Islamic State (Isis) on humanitarian aid. He is right not to abandon his holiday, which would merely suggest that Iraq is Britain’s responsibility, encouraging the laptop bombardiers, jingo editorialists and jobless soldiers who have a field day at times like this. Some people, it seems, cannot get out of bed without joining the Lord Ashdown memorial chorus of “something must be done” and “send in air strikes”.
That said, Iraq today is not easy for non-interventionists. In a real sense it is a British responsibility. We helped smash it. We owned it. Without any legal justification, we toppled and killed Iraq’s ruler, Saddam Hussein. We sent home his army and dismantled law and order. We broke the ruling party and civil service, causing the chaos that exiled the middle classes and massacred tens of thousands of civilians.
We then allowed the looting of Iraq’s museums and the humiliation of its culture, incidentally evicting the most ancient Christian community in the region. We dare not even publish the Chilcot report that might say we did all this. Iraq was the biggest mistake of British foreign policy of our age, and still there are some who think it smart to defend it.
Yet to be responsible for a mistake does not imply the capacity to correct it. Until 1999, when Tony Blair redefined “humanitarian intervention” as embracing war, the Red Cross principle of impartial aid to all victims of armed conflict was generally accepted. Yugoslavia was the tipping point. The west began picking a side and helping it to win, or lose.
Throughout the “age of intervention”, that side was almost always in rebellion against an established regime – Bosnians against Serbia, Kosovans against Serbia, northern tribes against Kabul, Shia against Saddam, Benghazi against Gaddafi, insurgents against Damascus. Western interventionists claimed to be for freedom against tyranny, but were mostly for chaos against security and order.
Iraq desperately needs the world’s humanitarian aid, and this has rightly been forthcoming. But what of the need that breeds the need? Baghdad’s army faces a deadly foe. Whatever past faults may have given rise to Isis, 10 years ago the west went to war for the sake of a better Iraq. Should it not do so again if any shred of benefit from that occupation is to survive?
The present answer is air power, long the fool’s gold of intervention-lite. Bombing sounds macho, looks good on television and “destroys convoys”. It appeals to the techno-nerds of the arms business, with their drones, standoff targetry and so-called precision accuracy. But bombs are never accurate. Isis may be cynical in claiming to kill hostages only in revenge for deaths from American bombs, but the US gives it the excuse. I never understand how western air forces can bomb civilians and yet object when the other side causes similar mayhem in return.
Close air support for ground troops in open country played a useful part in recent wars, such as the rebel advances on Kabul and Tripoli. But the politico-strategic role of air power is pure air force propaganda. Bombing was supposed to oust Saddam, Milosevic, Gaddafi and Osama bin Laden. It never did. Ground forces were required. The occasional bomb may get lucky and kill the right person. It may halt a column or help recapture a dam. The idea that bombing can turn a war is folly. There is no reason to think that western bombs will restore the fortunes of the Iraqi government or force Isis to admit defeat. Experts expect Isis simply to hide in civilian cities. As the American strategist David Kilcullen says, even if Isis “magically died tonight … a new one would emerge in a year or two”. This is no computer war game.
To postulate some magic means, beyond humanitarian aid but short of boots on the ground, is plain naive. If Britain really feels historic guilt over 2003, then it should go back and give massive military support to the competent new Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi. It should take the fight to the front, reconquer and occupy territory, and defend a border.
Isis would have to be driven back into Syria where Bashar al-Assad – clearly no one else – would have to finish it off. Perhaps the Russians and the Iranians could be induced to do more to help. Our enemy’s enemies must become our friends. And we will need the US totally on board.
This, in turn, would be a preamble to a resumed nation-building. It is barking mad. The west’s biggest error was to undermine the most stable movement in the postwar Middle East, that of Ba’athism. It was tough and tribally vicious, but it did keep Islamist fanaticism at bay.
The west took it upon itself to destroy Ba’athism, to replace authority with democracy. It was a disaster. The old Muslim saying holds good: “Better a thousand years of tyranny than a year of anarchy.” All the west has done is prove it.
Isis appears to be like the Taliban, another fanatical group that arose on the back of the US intervention in Afghanistan in the 1990s, though it looks more flaky because it lacks a tribal base. Such movements have risen and fallen over time. They pose no substantive, let alone existential, threat to the west.
Cameron was silly to claim, in a welter of Sunday Telegraph platitudes, that Isis was “a danger to Europe”, that its caliphate was “not miles from home” and threatened “the brighter future we long for”. He should sprinkle something else on his cornflakes.
Both Cameron and Obama have denied any intention to reoccupy Iraq. Public opinion will never allow it. The belligerence that fills every newscast and media outlet is merely giving Isis street cred in fighting the western Satan. It is to such tub-thumping opportunism that the 21st century’s bloody interventionism has been reduced.
We should always aid those caught up in these terrible wars – in Iraq or Syria or Sudan or Nigeria – but not pretend to fight their wars for them. In Iraq we can bomb convoys, but for how long? The humanitarian prerogative should be absolute. We should help humans who need us, not wars that don’t.
David Cameron wants Britain to stay out of Iraq. “We are not going to get involved … no boots on the ground … no sending in the British army.” Assuming he means it, he is right. He is right to focus Britain’s response to Islamic State (Isis) on humanitarian aid. He is right not to abandon his holiday, which would merely suggest that Iraq is Britain’s responsibility, encouraging the laptop bombardiers, jingo editorialists and jobless soldiers who have a field day at times like this. Some people, it seems, cannot get out of bed without joining the Lord Ashdown memorial chorus of “something must be done” and “send in air strikes”.
That said, Iraq today is not easy for non-interventionists. In a real sense it is a British responsibility. We helped smash it. We owned it. Without any legal justification, we toppled and killed Iraq’s ruler, Saddam Hussein. We sent home his army and dismantled law and order. We broke the ruling party and civil service, causing the chaos that exiled the middle classes and massacred tens of thousands of civilians.
We then allowed the looting of Iraq’s museums and the humiliation of its culture, incidentally evicting the most ancient Christian community in the region. We dare not even publish the Chilcot report that might say we did all this. Iraq was the biggest mistake of British foreign policy of our age, and still there are some who think it smart to defend it.
Yet to be responsible for a mistake does not imply the capacity to correct it. Until 1999, when Tony Blair redefined “humanitarian intervention” as embracing war, the Red Cross principle of impartial aid to all victims of armed conflict was generally accepted. Yugoslavia was the tipping point. The west began picking a side and helping it to win, or lose.
Throughout the “age of intervention”, that side was almost always in rebellion against an established regime – Bosnians against Serbia, Kosovans against Serbia, northern tribes against Kabul, Shia against Saddam, Benghazi against Gaddafi, insurgents against Damascus. Western interventionists claimed to be for freedom against tyranny, but were mostly for chaos against security and order.
Iraq desperately needs the world’s humanitarian aid, and this has rightly been forthcoming. But what of the need that breeds the need? Baghdad’s army faces a deadly foe. Whatever past faults may have given rise to Isis, 10 years ago the west went to war for the sake of a better Iraq. Should it not do so again if any shred of benefit from that occupation is to survive?
The present answer is air power, long the fool’s gold of intervention-lite. Bombing sounds macho, looks good on television and “destroys convoys”. It appeals to the techno-nerds of the arms business, with their drones, standoff targetry and so-called precision accuracy. But bombs are never accurate. Isis may be cynical in claiming to kill hostages only in revenge for deaths from American bombs, but the US gives it the excuse. I never understand how western air forces can bomb civilians and yet object when the other side causes similar mayhem in return.
Close air support for ground troops in open country played a useful part in recent wars, such as the rebel advances on Kabul and Tripoli. But the politico-strategic role of air power is pure air force propaganda. Bombing was supposed to oust Saddam, Milosevic, Gaddafi and Osama bin Laden. It never did. Ground forces were required. The occasional bomb may get lucky and kill the right person. It may halt a column or help recapture a dam. The idea that bombing can turn a war is folly. There is no reason to think that western bombs will restore the fortunes of the Iraqi government or force Isis to admit defeat. Experts expect Isis simply to hide in civilian cities. As the American strategist David Kilcullen says, even if Isis “magically died tonight … a new one would emerge in a year or two”. This is no computer war game.
To postulate some magic means, beyond humanitarian aid but short of boots on the ground, is plain naive. If Britain really feels historic guilt over 2003, then it should go back and give massive military support to the competent new Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi. It should take the fight to the front, reconquer and occupy territory, and defend a border.
Isis would have to be driven back into Syria where Bashar al-Assad – clearly no one else – would have to finish it off. Perhaps the Russians and the Iranians could be induced to do more to help. Our enemy’s enemies must become our friends. And we will need the US totally on board.
This, in turn, would be a preamble to a resumed nation-building. It is barking mad. The west’s biggest error was to undermine the most stable movement in the postwar Middle East, that of Ba’athism. It was tough and tribally vicious, but it did keep Islamist fanaticism at bay.
The west took it upon itself to destroy Ba’athism, to replace authority with democracy. It was a disaster. The old Muslim saying holds good: “Better a thousand years of tyranny than a year of anarchy.” All the west has done is prove it.
Isis appears to be like the Taliban, another fanatical group that arose on the back of the US intervention in Afghanistan in the 1990s, though it looks more flaky because it lacks a tribal base. Such movements have risen and fallen over time. They pose no substantive, let alone existential, threat to the west.
Cameron was silly to claim, in a welter of Sunday Telegraph platitudes, that Isis was “a danger to Europe”, that its caliphate was “not miles from home” and threatened “the brighter future we long for”. He should sprinkle something else on his cornflakes.
Both Cameron and Obama have denied any intention to reoccupy Iraq. Public opinion will never allow it. The belligerence that fills every newscast and media outlet is merely giving Isis street cred in fighting the western Satan. It is to such tub-thumping opportunism that the 21st century’s bloody interventionism has been reduced.
We should always aid those caught up in these terrible wars – in Iraq or Syria or Sudan or Nigeria – but not pretend to fight their wars for them. In Iraq we can bomb convoys, but for how long? The humanitarian prerogative should be absolute. We should help humans who need us, not wars that don’t.
