Donald Trump is escalating his bombing campaign in the Middle East – and going easy on the regimes that allowed terrorism to flourish there in the first place.
While there may be great differences between Donald Trump and Angela Merkel, they remain allies in the "war on terror." And so despite Germany’s contribution to the military mission against the so-called Islamic State (IS) being limited to Tornado reconnaissance flights and weapons for the Kurdish Peshmerga, when the US-led coalition escalates its war in the air, it does so in Germany’s name.
- The New Brutality
This currently applies to Donald Trump’s strategy for the "war on terror" – although "strategy" is the wrong word. Since Mr. Trump took office, the United States has mainly put its faith in more bombs, more drones and more rockets. Not against the perpetrator of the worst terror against civilians, namely the Syrian government that, according to all indications, on Tuesday once again carried out a chemical attack, but against IS and Al-Qaeda – with the civilian population paying an increasingly high price. Where this leads can currently be seen in Syria, in Iraq and, most dramatically, in Yemen. The tactic of the "new brutality," as the British-Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid calls it, promotes exactly what it claims to be fighting: militant Islamist terror.
Numerous air attacks in Iraq and Syria are greatly increasing the number of civilian casualties. On 20 March, bomber pilots of the US-led coalition killed more than 30 refugees near Raqqa. A few days before on 17 March, as many as 200 civilians are estimated to have died in western Mosul after an American air attack on their collapsing apartment building. On the same day, the Pentagon announced a "successful mission" against high-ranking members of Al-Qaeda in the northern Syrian village of Al-Jina. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights instead called it a "massacre." The rockets apparently hit a mosque where local residents had gathered for prayer.
2 . Civilian Deaths Are Accepted
The US-led coalition is currently killing more civilians in the "war on terror" than the Russian air force in its attempt to keep the Assad regime in power. The offensives on Mosul and Raqqa are admittedly not equivalent to the deliberate destruction of eastern Aleppo, where Moscow and Damascus allowed schools, hospitals and marketplaces to be attacked. That was terror against an opposing civilian population and an undeniable war crime. The US-led coalition, on the other hand, seeks to avoid civilian casualties; but in Mosul, that is becoming increasingly difficult because IS uses inhabitants as human shields. Last week, Amnesty International accused Washington, Baghdad and their allies of failing to take sufficient care to protect the civilian population during the advance on western Mosul, "in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law." The coalition had used leaflets to advise inhabitants to remain inside their homes during the offensive, but for many people these have turned into death traps because of the massive attacks by aircraft and artillery.
At present, not one of the 60 member states of the global anti-IS coalition has condemned a strategy that uses fighter bombers against sharpshooters and massive artillery salvos in densely populated areas. One is compelled to conclude that the civilian casualties are being accepted as "collateral damage" in pursuit of the all-important goal of destroying IS.
3 . IS Benefits from the Escalation
IS won’t disappear even if the loss of Mosul and Raqqa deprives it of its "caliphate." In Iraq, it has already returned to its old guerrilla strategy of hit-and-run attacks throughout the country. Hidden out in the desert, IS strategists are expecting that a high number of civilian casualties in Mosul will turn the besieged inhabitants against their liberators. Once the city has been retaken, they hope the victorious alliance will splinter into its familiar hostile factions: Shiite militia; Sunni tribes; Kurdish Peshmerga; PKK fighters; competing police and army units. All of these factions will be supported by their respective foreign sponsors Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia and equipped with arsenals they received from western countries including Germany in the fight against IS.
In itself, this is not an argument against the delivery of weapons to the Peshmerga by the German government. It is an argument for diplomatic and political efforts to create stable post-war structures in the affected countries.
4 . The Breakup of Countries Must Be Halted
Such efforts are still missing. The EU has no influence and isn’t seeking any; it is concentrating on keeping refugees out. Under Barack Obama, the United States for the most part turned away from the region. Russia is compromised as a warring party, while the regional powers Iran and Saudi Arabia remain caught in a struggle for dominance.
And so further conflicts loom on the horizon: In northern Iraq, the Kurds want to achieve independence through a referendum. In the meantime, Shiite militias financed by Iran are settling into the liberated section of Sunni Mosul. This is grist for the mills of Sunni hardliners and IS propagandists. Negotiations between all groups in the political process are just as far off in Iraq as they are in Syria.
Trump administration called the attack "reprehensible"
Despite an official ceasefire, Syrian and Russian aircraft continue to bomb areas controlled by the opposition, while the rebels respond by bombarding residential areas in Damascus. On Tuesday, more than 100 people, including many children, were killed after a suspected chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province. Doctors at the scene reported treating victims who showed symptoms consistent with a nerve agent like sarin. The Trump administration called the attack "reprehensible", but previously stated that an Assad resignation is no longer Washington’s priority.
5 . With Assad against Terror?
The Syrian leader could be forgiven for taking this statement from the White House as official confirmation that he has long been viewed in Washington as a secret partner in the "war on terror." Since 9/11, it has been a business model of dictators and autocrats to offer themselves to the West – and to Russia as well – as allies in the fight against the terror that they themselves have helped to create through repression, manipulation or the exportation of ideology. In Syria, President Assad actively worked toward the Islamization of the opposition. For a long time, he allowed IS to persist while simultaneously labeling the rest of his opponents "terrorists."
This sort of model works as long as western states ignore their own complicity in the history of this terror. Al-Qaeda, let us not forget, is also the product of an American-Saudi coalition against Soviet troops in Afghanistan during the 1980s. The "Islamic State" was originally a spin-off of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, whose fortunes were boosted by the disastrous US occupation there and the escalation of a power struggle between Sunnis and Shiites the region. Both terrorist groups are the symptom of massive upheavals and interventions in the region, not the cause.
The Obama administration and even that of George W. Bush in its final phase realized this, which is why they tried to coordinate military advances with political and diplomatic initiatives. But now power lies with a president who, on one hand, intends to reduce the influence of the State Department and its diplomatic corps through massive budget cuts, while on the other hand awarding the Pentagon an additional $54 billion and for the most part allowing it a free hand in the "war on terror."
6 . Military Strength as an End unto Itself
The demonstration of military clout is becoming an end unto itself – whose devastating consequences are nowhere more apparent than in Yemen, also under the banner of the "war on terror."
In Yemen, neighboring Saudi Arabia’s military intervention has turned an internal conflict between Houthi rebels and a widely hated, corrupt government into a regional proxy war with Iran that has become a humanitarian catastrophe. Since 2015, at least 10,000 civilians have fallen victim to the war. The country’s infrastructure has been destroyed; famine threatens to kill tens of thousands more.
One of the darkest chapters in the history of the Obama administration was that it didn’t attempt to stop Riyadh’s intervention. Instead, the US provided logistical support to the Saudi air force – despite hospitals and funerals being bombed. This is also a dark chapter in the history of the European Union. Great Britain, when still a member, delivered weapons to Saudi Arabia worth billions of dollars while Germany, the EU’s leading member, continued to authorize the export of armaments to the desert kingdom whose monarchy is still considered to be a "strategic partner" in the "war on terror."
7 . Terror as a Pretext
Particularly in Yemen, it is clear that propaganda about a "war on terror" can be shifted around like on-stage props and then removed when it suits. Because Riyadh believes Iran is giving the rebels illegitimate support in Yemen, it is not only conducting an aerial war with American assistance but is also allowing Salafist groups close to Al-Qaeda to be strengthened in order to fight the Shiite rebels on the ground. At the same these groups are the target of American drones and hit-and-run missions by US special forces in which civilians are repeatedly killed. Most recently in January, more than 20 inhabitants of a village in central Yemen, including several children, died in an attack by Navy Seals.
Washington is now even considering direct military intervention on the side of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen to push back Iran – with whose militia the US is simultaneously and silently cooperating in the offensive against Mosul and whose close ally Bashar al-Assad it allows to remain in power in Syria.
However one wishes to describe this nonsense, it certainly isn’t a "war on terror." All participating powers are pursuing their own goals: Iran endeavors to promote Shiite expansion, Saudi Arabia works against it; Turkey fights the Kurds; Russia seeks recognition as a great power. It is utterly unclear what the United States under President Trump wants in the Middle East.
The Pentagon has been given more authority to conduct operations in the region and, according to the New York Times, has declared three provinces in Yemen as an "area of active hostilities." This means there no longer needs to be a "near certainty" that no civilians will be killed. Now, civilian casualties must simply be "proportionate" – whatever that means. Mr. Trump, who recently claimed in an interview with the Financial Times to be "totally opposed to the war in the Middle East," is now in the process of expanding the field of battle. He doesn’t have the faintest of what should actually be achieved. The main thing is for there to be a big bang.