George Kerevan: Cameron’s ‘send in Biggles’ attitude will do nothing to defeat Daesh

Opposing a mandate for the British Tory Government to bomb Daesh positions inside Syria should not be read as giving any support to the jihadist proto-state. Daesh terror tactics are a clear and present danger to the people everywhere, including Scotland – though mostly to those under its direct control. It is the manner by which we defend ourselves, and the effectiveness thereof, that is at issue.

Let me also dispose of the question of Daesh’s undoubted culpability. I believe that Western meddling in – and ruthless economic exploitation of – the Arab world is one of the key factors that gave rise to Daesh. But the same is true regarding the rise of Nazism, which was a direct result of the draconian sanctions imposed on ordinary German people by France and Britain after the First World War. Neither of these manifest political errors remotely justifies the subsequent crimes of Hitlerite fascism or the Daesh brand of jihadism.

We should also remember that the triumph of an extreme form of reaction in Germany was facilitated (indeed funded) by the industrial bourgeois class who saw the Nazis as a bulwark against Communism. Equally, the rise of Daesh has been facilitated by the existing Arab regimes – not to mention Turkey – in the dubious hope of destabilising their internal and external enemies. In both cases, the result was political monsters who devoured their naive creators.

Here we come to the nub of the British bombing debate. A moment’s reflection will tell you that we add nothing militarily by sending the RAF’s eight, 30-year-old GR4 Tornadoes to join the US, Russia, French, Turkish, Israeli, Bahraini, Saudi, Jordanian, Qatari and Emirati planes currently bombing the hell out of Syria. Nor, in the absence of any capable military force willing to invade Daesh territory in order to capture its twin capitals of Raqqa and Mosul, will bombing do anything but contain the jihadist regime within its present boundaries – and thus free to continue Paris-style terror attacks anywhere.

So why is David Cameron so intent on sending in the RAF? Mostly for domestic reasons, I suspect. A vote to bomb will split Labour, win Cameron French support in his pantomime negotiations with the EU, and satisfy demands in the tabloid media to “do something” in the wake of the Paris shootings. Bombing will also give the British Establishment a seat at the negotiating table when the Middle East cake is carved up yet again. The one thing RAF bombing will not produce is any quick end to Daesh. To do that requires a ceasefire in the Syrian civil war and an agreement (temporary or otherwise) among the main actors to put together a force that can re-take the ground Daesh holds.

Defeating Daesh will require more than Biggles. Daesh is the most powerful and effective edition of the global jihad to emerge. It was formed by an alliance of Sunni militants (radicalised by the US invasion of Iraq) and officers from Saddam Hussein’s old

Baathist military (who provide Daesh with its military knowhow). Daesh has carved out a proto-state in a territory the size of Britain; it has accumulated or stolen immense wealth, and pays its troops well by regional standards; it organises the smuggling of oil and historic artefacts on a mass scale; and it has recruited IT specialists of the highest level to conduct a global social media offensive and launder its funds. Tactical bombing has done little to diminish Daesh except limit its ability to field large military units in frontal attacks that could capture, say, Baghdad. Bombing has done nothing to stop Daesh franchisees and freelancers spraying Parisian cafes with Kalashnikovs. How can Daesh hold territory? Principally because the only state with the military and political clout to see it off the planet – the United States – has gone AWOL. Weakened by the banking crisis and challenged by China in the Pacific, America is in global political retreat. President Obama is the prisoner of an inward-looking Republican Congress and even the clownish Donald Trump is preaching isolationism. Not that I’m willing a US military intervention.

But I am suggesting that a political vacuum in the Middle East has resulted from Obama’s failure to engage.

Obama has failed to broker a solution to the Palestine problem. He has failed to blunt Putin’s adventurism. He failed to deter the previous sectarian Maliki regime in Iraq from driving the Sunni population into the arms of Daesh. And he failed to force the pace of regime change in Syria before the civil war reached its present, chaotic state. Finally, Obama has been content (and therefore culpable) in merely containing Daesh – the better to put pressure (he thinks) on Iran.

NO wonder that the divided European states are in a quandary, having been left to pick up the pieces. These pieces include the mass exodus of Syrians into the EU – an ethnic cleansing of Sunnis that is the ploy of the Assad regime, by the way, not Daesh. But that is not – repeat not – an excuse to vote for bombing. Quite the opposite, in fact. Cameron’s call for bombing is a declaration of political impotence, not a signpost towards any kind of diplomatic solution.

That is precisely why we need to vote No: in order to focus minds on a strategic solutions for the Middle East. If Cameron wants to play a role, it should be using Britain’s diplomatic clout (such as it is) re-engaging America and seeking a ceasefire in the Syrian civil war. Such a ceasefire is the basic precursor to any possibility of invading and destroying Daesh. Getting the US, Russia and even China involved in that project is worth thousands of Tornado sorties. Not that I entirely rule out “active” British involvement. But there is a more effective alternative to David Cameron shouting tally-ho as our ageing Tornado mini-fleet scrambles.

Firing one Brimstone missile to destroy a rusty SUV costs the British taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds. For the same cash we could deploy a platoon of cyber warriors to interdict the ability of Daesh to hide or move its cash around electronically. Without that cash Daesh cannot pay, feed and arm its jihadist recruits.

Be it a real caliphate or not, Daesh has created a genuine sense of identity for some young Muslims disenchanted with Western consumerism, unemployment and lack of opportunity – the first such meta-identity since the Western-inspired destruction of the old Ottoman Empire. Daesh will be defeated, but what then? To stop yet another reiteration of the jihad demands more than bombs. A counter narrative is needed – one that combines ‘modernity’ and democracy with genuine respect for historic Muslim culture. India and Indonesia – which have the largest indigenous Muslim populations in the world – have managed to achieve this combination. It can be done if we start to think beyond the failed palliative of bombing.

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