It’s a funny old war, this one — and the discussion of it is even stranger. As Australia joins the latest Western campaign in Iraq, where’s the debate about what’s supposed to happen?
Consider a few obvious questions.
On the weekend, a cabal of military experts told The Australian defeating the Islamic State would require a “substantial ground campaign”. Does Prime Minister Tony Abbott agree? Does Opposition Leader Bill Shorten? Is that what Australia is really signing up for?
Meanwhile, Australian scribe Greg Sheridan thinks the “long campaign ahead” might involve combat in Syria. Is this true? If so, which side of the Syrian civil war does Australia back?
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says US President Barack Obama is already co-ordinating attacks with Syria (something Obama denies). More importantly, the non-IS rebel groups in Syria — the people the White House ostensibly backs — widely oppose the American air strikes.
The Atlantic says the Americans are “backing away from the goal of toppling Assad”, who is, of course, probably the worst dictator in the region. What’s the Australian attitude?
What about the Kurds? Where does Australia stand there? Bernard Keane has already noted that Australian-supplied weapons may be ending up with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is, um, a designated terrorist group. What’s Australian policy if, as many commentators expect, the Kurdish groups strengthened by the intervention declare their independence?
Let’s note that Turkey has just joined the anti-IS coalition — but, as Newsweek notes, its “reason for joining the war may be as much to suppress Kurdish separatists as to destroy ISIS”.
“It’s not merely that Australians aren’t being given the answers. It’s also that no one much seems to be asking the questions.”
What’s Abbott’s position?
What about within Iraq? We have already seen the militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr demonstrating against the US returning to Iraq. Al-Sadr opposes IS, but his backers, including one of Iraq’s Deputy Prime Ministers Bahaa al-Araji, see the Americans as a bigger enemy — indeed, they call IS an American creation. How will Australia relate to this hostility from one of the most powerful groupings in the country?
On a related note, what’s the Abbott attitude to Iran, far and away the biggest winner from America’s Iraq policy since 2003? The White House seems to be allying with the Islamic state in Tehran against IS in Iraq and Syria. Is this Australian policy, too?
Most fundamentally, what happens if and when IS is pushed back? No doubt airstrikes can, as advertised, degrade the military capabilities of the Islamic State … and then what? Given the fundamentally antagonistic forces being set into motion, how does the mission end?
It’s not merely that Australians aren’t being given the answers. It’s also that no one much seems to be asking the questions. On the contrary, pundits — particularly liberal pundits — seem endlessly preoccupied with empty symbolism.
Think about the string of op-eds proposing different terms to call the Islamic State, as if that makes the slightest difference to anything. Or the way that there’s been far more discussion about the UAE’s female fighter pilot (“Maj. Mariam Al Mansouri may be ISIS’ worst nightmare”) than, say, debates on the Kurdish question. In 2010, the Australian Federal Police conducted anti-terror raids raids against Kurdish organisations across Australia on the basis that they supported the banned PKK, a group that Newsweek now calls an “important asset in the allied fight against ISIS”.
Is the fundamental incoherence of all this not of some significance, as we send young men and women out to kill and be killed?
Of course, symbolic rejections of the Islamic State’s barbarism make us feel good about ourselves, while arguing through the consequences of the strange alliances now taking shape has the opposite effect.
One thing for sure in this latest unfolding war debacle, no-one will be counting civilian casualties. As we all know the Americans and their camp followers like Australia only kill the bad guys in a responsible manner, …not civilians …like the bad guys do.
The question that must be answered by that cabal of military experts proclaiming that defeating the Islamic State would require a “substantial ground campaign”, what the fuck have we doing in Iraq since 2002 to have this situation that exists today? None of the experts foresaw this coming eh?
Not only ‘no one is asking the right question’ they’re also asking the wrong people. Just skip the middle man, call the White House and ask them what the Australian adults in government think and will do.
Spot on Jeff Sparrow.
Be fair, Jeff. Abbott’s pre-election promises did not include one involving thinking.
Thank you Jeff Sparrow and Crikey. The phenomenon of a creeping conflict, with no actual declaration of war, no n n consultation of the adult populace or their elected representatives, has been a feature of my lifetime. Vietnam, the first Iraq war, the ‘War on Terror’. Last time, we went out into the streets to show our disgust. What are we doing now? Sitting in armchairs, watching reports on TV? More likely, leaving our armchairs to start the first barbie of the summer, now daylight saving is here; or waiting impatiently for the cricket season to begin. Politically, thinking and behaving las though slapped about the head by a wet fish. Walloped into insensibility. Stunned into silence. Disbelieving and dazed. Where’s the leadership on this? Bill shorten is a lost cause. Wake up, you who care. If it has to be a an anti war movement led by a microscopic collection of Greens in Federal parliament, so be it. Get it up and running. I’m too old and crook to make placards and turn up in front of Parliament House any more.but it needs to be done to show that there’s a strong moral core to this nation.