Obama’s clueless view of ISIL

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I would feel a lot better about Obama’s prospects for kicking the Islamic State’s ass if it weren’t for what he said in the fourth paragraph of his speech to the nation last week.

The fourth paragraph of the speech read in its entirety as follows:

Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.” No religion condones the killing of innocents. And the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor by the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.

With the exception of the sentence referring to ISIL’s former affiliation with al Qaeda and its exploitation of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war, every statement in this paragraph is either untrue or beside the point. Taken in its entirety it suggests Obama has a delusional view of what he is up against.

Consider the text point by point: 

ISIL is not “Islamic.” Hogwash. Of course ISIL is Islamic. That’s the real problem. ISIL is a particularly extreme example of militant Islamic fundamentalism, which is attracting legions of adherents throughout the Moslem world — an increasing number of whom choose to go on Jihad. ISIL is not outside of Islam. It is inside Islam and, along with its fellow militant organizations, represents a movement that is probably the most vital force within Islam today. Militant Islamic fundamentalism is increasingly coming to define the religion. To assert that “ISIL is not Islamic” is to spectacularly misread both the true nature of the enemy and the current state of Islam.

No religion condones the killing of innocents. Even a cursory reading of both the Koran and the Bible suggest otherwise. The history of most religions on this planet is written, in part at least, in the blood of innocents (who are usually rebranded as heretics, apostates and enemies of God prior to being killed, of course). ISIL has had no problem finding Koranic justification for the killing of otherwise innocent unbelievers. Nor has it had a problem obtaining fatwas from supportive mullahs to justify such killings. By asserting that “No religion condones the killing of innocents,” Obama is giving Islam a pass for its justification of Jihadist violence.

And the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. Well, yes. That’s because ISIL is trying to recast Islam in its own image. But as far as the United States is concerned, what is important is that ISIL wants to recast the U.S. and the rest of the world in its image and that it believes that it is on a mission from God to do so.

And ISIL is certainly not a state… It is recognized by no government, nor by the people it subjugates. It’s true ISIL is not a state, but so what? It has the power to make its writ run in the areas it controls and it is the sovereign power within those areas. It doesn’t care whether or not the world considers it a nation-state, because it doesn’t believe in the concept of nation-states, the fact that it has renamed itself the Islamic State not withstanding. It wants to erase national boundaries and create a global caliphate. ISIL would consider the fact that it is not a nation-state a feature, not a bug. It doesn’t give a rip as to whether the nations-states of the world recognize it as a legitimate government, because it believes God recognizes it as a legitimate government.

As for the assertion that ISIL isn’t recognized as a state by the people it subjugates, they may not recognize it as a legitimate government, but most of them have the wit to recognize ISIL as the guys with the guns and the long knives who will kill them in a heartbeat if they don’t submit. That’s recognition enough for revolutionaries who have just shot their way into power. More formal recognition and willing submission comes with time.

ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way. ISIL is a terrorist organization all right, but there is a lot more to it than terror for terror’s sake. Obama’s assertion that “it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way” is flatly wrong. ISIL has a highly coherent vision of what it wants to do and a pretty coherent idea of how to go about doing it. It wants to establish a global Islamic caliphate, and it wants to establish an Islamic governing entity of some sort on captured territory in Syria and Iraq that it can use as a springboard from which to do it. Slaughtering “all who stand in its way” is a means to an end, not an end to itself, as Obama intimates.

History is full of examples of leaders of powerful nations who lose wars because they misread or don’t bother to read or deliberately misread the nature and intentions of the enemy. If Obama goes to war thinking that the fourth paragraph of his speech contains an accurate characterization of the enemy he’s going up against, he is setting both himself and the country up for a nasty fall.

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This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.