{"id":16763,"date":"2014-11-05T12:36:59","date_gmt":"2014-11-05T01:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=16763"},"modified":"2014-11-06T11:17:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T00:17:21","slug":"different-perspectives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/different-perspectives\/","title":{"rendered":"Different perspectives"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>In his recent ASPI paper<\/a> Peter Leahy provides a bracing warning\u2014that we may be fighting radical Islam for 100 years. Lieutenant General Leahy points out not only the global nature of this threat, but also how it has mutated into a menace that can\u2019t be addressed by military means alone.<\/p>\n

To counter this, the general insists politicians need to \u2018advance a narrative that explains that radical Islamism and the terrorism it breeds at home and abroad will remain a significant threat for the long-term\u2019. Little to disagree with there.<\/p>\n

Brendan Nicholson developed the theme further in an article for The Australian. Searching for comment, Nicholson went to retired Major General Michael Krause, \u2018the officer responsible for planning the coalition campaign in Afghanistan\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018Absolutely\u2019, Krause was quoted as saying when Leahy\u2019s thesis was put to him. \u2018I have seen these people. I know how they think. I know how they fight. There is no compromise possible\u2019.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s our job as journalists\u2014to search out ideas and put them before the public. Evaluation is left to commentary, because we\u2019re not equipped to assess the veracity or intellectual credibility of the arguments being put.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, because I was working in the Middle East at the time, I couldn\u2019t help but notice that there was a divergence between the older generals\u2019 views and those of the officers currently engaged in the war. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they\u2019re focused on the here and now.<\/p>\n

The story being pushed by NATO\u2019s International Security Assistance Force in Kabul was, in fact, markedly different. According to senior military officers over there, \u2018the government has about as good a chance of success as we can give it\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018I’m being very honest now\u2019, a senior officer told me, \u2018real progress is being made. The Afghan [military] leadership is not bad, even if it’s not consistently performing as well as we would hope. And after the last election there is real hope on the civilian side as well\u2019.<\/p>\n

And ISIL? \u2018We need the right strategy\u2019, another commander said. \u2018All wars are won through a culmination of tactical actions. Militarily, Iraq is a challenging dynamic\u2014but not a complex one\u2019. I was left in no doubt that kinetic destruction of ISIL is possible. What replaces it is, of course, another matter.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy, journalistically, to juxtapose those positive comments with Leahy\u2019s depressing thesis and say someone must be wrong. Or perhaps to wonder if they\u2019re talking about different wars. But that’s neither true nor fair. The serving officers admit there\u2019s an \u2018ideological dimension\u2019 to this fight that needs to be addressed. Equally, I’m sure the retired officers would admit significant progress is being made in the field. And finally, nobody doubts that without resolving the underlying issues, conflict will continue.<\/p>\n

But what are the underlying issues? Are they religious, cultural, ethnic, or something else? What spurs violent extremism?<\/p>\n

\u2018The threat is not only military, it’s also ideological\u2019, says one of today’s commanders. \u2018But this is [their] war; they need to solve it. Yes, the Shia-Sunni divide contributes to this fight, but it’s a complex mix. There are multiple lenses that apply. You’re dealing with cultural issues, religious and ethnic ones. Leadership succession and stability concerns; historical and economic problems. You need to view this through multiple lenses to make sense of what’s happening\u2019.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the crucial issue. Everything\u2019s interlinked. It\u2019s easy to be superficial, searching for elemental causes of the current conflict. A cogent case can be made that the fault line\u2019s religious, revolving around the divide within Islam and with Christianity. Then again, conflicts like those in Afghanistan and Iraq are equally susceptible to dissection as nothing more than ethnic quarrels, or even just individuals struggling for personal power.<\/p>\n

Economic issues provoked the Arab Spring. But there\u2019s also a plausible case to be made that it\u2019s all Washington\u2019s fault\u2014after all, the US has decisively mishandled every crisis in the region since 1979.<\/p>\n

Let’s play devil\u2019s advocate. Start in Afghanistan. America funded and created the mujahideen\u00a0<\/em>as a method of punishing Russia for invading in 1979, but it didn\u2019t attempt to inculcate democratic values among the Taliban. All it wanted was people who\u2019d fight the Soviets. Then, by the time the Taliban\u00a0took Kabul, America’s interest had turned elsewhere. Sorting out Afghanistan was just too hard. Until the blowback.<\/p>\n

1979 was also the year the US-backed Shah of Iran fell to a popular revolution. It wasn’t long before modern weapons were on their way to Iraq as the US supported Saddam Hussein in his conflict with Tehran; then America failed to send him a clear signal not to invade Kuwait; encouraged revolt in the early \u201890\u2019s yet didn\u2019t support it; invaded on a pretext in \u201803 with no plan for what would come next; installed an incompetent administrator; and departed, leaving a bitterly divisive ruler in charge. Should we be surprised that things didn\u2019t turn out well? No religion in any of that.<\/p>\n

And that’s why, even though I’ll admit there\u2019s a religious element to this conflict, I’m wary of the idea that this is some type of new, apocalyptic, hundred-year war. I can\u2019t help thinking most people just want to live securely, with an opportunity for their children to have a better life. Those are social problems, not religious ones. Providing a few economic answers may not solve the entire crisis. But it might be a start.<\/p>\n

Nic Stuart is a columnist with<\/em> The\u00a0Canberra Times. Image courtesy of Flicker user Adam Jones<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

An earlier version of this post incorrectly transposed\u00a0‘Taliban’ and ‘mujahideen’.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his recent ASPI paper Peter Leahy provides a bracing warning\u2014that we may be fighting radical Islam for 100 years. 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