A video showing an English-speaking jihadist beheading the American journalist James Foley has been aired by almost every major TV station around the world. Whom does the message target, and – why has the mainstream media opted to be so cooperative in disseminating the terrorists’ message?
Radio VR discusses it with the Caabu Director Chris Doyle and Alastair Crooke, expert in political Islam and the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum.
Chris Doyle, the Director of the Council for Advancing Arab-British relations (Caabu), says:
“The widespread circulation of this gory and brutal video of the decapitation of James Foley, of course, has actually done exactly what these criminals wanted – to spread their message and their word. And it has gone across the world. Most media outlets didn’t actually show the video itself, but, certainly, the images of it. And certain social media have taken it down. But nonetheless, it has certainly given the Islamic State a huge amount of publicity for its brutal actions.
That said, it is also going to galvanize a response. It puts pressure on President Obama, David Cameron in Britain and other leaders to tackle the issue of ISIS, to tackle what is going on in Iraq and Syria that, perhaps, wasn’t there before. So, it may also finally drive these political leaders to develop a strategy to handle what is quite clearly a significant threat to the security in the region, but also in Europe and the US.
Why would these people be so particular about stressing the involvement of the UK citizen in this act? They ran the text in Arabic and the person was speaking English. Why not vice versa?
Chris Doyle: It is a very good question. I think that the video is aimed at both, the English-speaking audience in the US and Britain (remembering that the US and Britain were the leading players in the original 2003 invasion of Iraq), but also at a broader Muslim audience. It wanted to demonstrate its ability to take the fight to the US. And the whole notion that you had assumingly a British citizen killing an American journalist, that in itself plays a powerful message.
And of course, a group like the Islamic State plays on fear and it wants to spread fear. So, the very notion that it carries out this brutal decapitation and then threatens the Western targets, if the US air strikes continue, this implies that they have other British member prepared to return to Europe and carry out similarly gruesome killings. And it is a plain psychological game.
So, was it actually wise to disseminate this message?
Chris Doyle: I think the actual video should not have been disseminated. I think it is almost impossible though in today’s world, with social networks and all these varying satellite channels with very different policies, to stop something like this being spread. And it is done so fast, so that by the time various companies had decided that they were going to take it off the YouTube, take it off Twitter, unfortunately, the video had been well circulated.
And it has to be said that groups like IS should not be underestimated. They have a very sophisticated media operation. And clearly, the video is very well made, it is not amateurish at all. So, they’ve become very adept at getting this out.
And I think as we move forward, the only way of honoring the life of James Foley and those others – let’s not forget them! – that have also been brutally murdered by the IS… let’s not forget those hundreds that have been buried alive, those who’ve been crucified, those who’ve been beheaded, those who have lost their loved ones. If we are going to honor them, then we have to develop a fully-grounded strategy to restore normality to Iraq and Syria, to end those crises and to remove the possibility of the IS growing again.
In order to defeat it, we have to resolve these conflicts in these countries, we have to make sure that all communities in these countries don’t feel excluded and we have to give people a much brighter horizon that isn’t currently the case. And that is the best way to ensure that these extremist groups do not flourish.
Of course, as part of a fully-grounded strategy to defeat the IS, there will need to be a military component, but it cannot be without a political one, an economic one (how do we cut off funding to these groups, how do we ensure that they do not enrich themselves, how do we ensure that they are not selling oil on the open markets). There has to be a fundamentally better approach than the one hitherto.
Up till now we’ve seen that the global war on terror has resulted in greater terrorist threat. Would it make sense to revise the strategy?
Chris Doyle: It doesn’t need to be a revised strategy. It needs to be the one that looks at Syria and Iraq together as one issue, because the IS is operating in both countries, and indeed probably even more in Syria. It needs to be the one in which the international and regional actors work together and cooperate, rather than fight against each other and follow their own very-very narrow interests.
And it needs to be the one that, first and foremost, looks at the interests of Iraqis and Syrians as the people, because for too long Iraqi and Syrian civilians have been caught between either autocratic regimes that didn’t represent them and have not advanced their interests, or these extremist Islamist groups.
And we have to empower the people in the middle, the people who want to have a pluralistic government that represents all of them, that doesn’t distinguish between Iraqis and Syrians on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender or sect. It will take some time, let’s not be shy about saying this – this is a long-term approach – but when we get there, we will be able to defeat ISIS”.
Why do you think those people would be so particular in stressing that there was a person with a UK background beheading the American journalist?
Alastair Crooke, the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum and MI6 veteran, says:
I think that this was deliberate, because it would catch the attention of particularly the European and American public, that here was not someone – if you like – from the region, that was doing it. But here was someone who’d been obviously brought up and educated within the Western society, who was performing the execution.
So, I think it added to this sort of sense of horror for people, it added to the effect that people felt from watching the video. And so, I think from that perspective it increased the gravity of the warning to the West, saying – here are the European Muslims that are doing these things and this is the danger to your societies, the danger within your societies. Not only the danger here in Iraq from your continued bombing of the ISIS.
Which is all the more surprising that major world channels have opted to air this footage. How could that happen?
Alastair Crooke: I think this is a shift. Although the video has been withdrawn from YouTube, there has been a much greater coverage than normally is. I personally think that this is not a bad thing. I think that, first of all, people need to know what is happening. And I think self-censorship actually prevents people from seeing it. And, yes, it is horrifying, it is gruesome, it is beastly. But, at the same time, this is the nature of the conflict, this is the nature of what people are going through and suffering from in Iraq.
And I think that in the recent times there has been a great tendency to wrap all the events in a sort of a sugar coating and make them as palatable to slip between other bits of news without shocking people. But this isn’t quite good, people should be a little shocked and see the brutal reality of the conflict that is taking place.
This sort of sugar-coated language, I think it does distance people and makes it harder for them to really sense what is happening. So, I think it was broadly a good thing. I mean, I don’t think we should overdo it, but I think it was good for people to experience the reality.
So, it was a kind of a challenge for the European and Western governments. How are they going to address this challenge?
Alastair Crooke: Actually, I don’t think there is much they can do. I think at the moment they are really arguing about how to shut a stable door after the horse bolted. Now we are talking about the ISIS movement which has seized the equipment and the armor, and the heavy weaponry of the four divisions in Mosul alone. This in itself would enable them to put in the field a mechanized armored force of 65 000 fully equipped men. They have large resources, millions of dollars.
And, quite clearly, they have an effective military leadership. There is no doubt about it, that they are relying on people who have considerable experience. Probably, these are the former officers from Saddam Hussein’s army that are giving their advice. They are militarily competent. They are not an ad hoc, sort of bedouin raiding party. This is something that has a strategy, has got military knowledge and experience.
So, what is the West going to do? Well, it has a number of choices. At the moment, all it is doing is trying to defend its protégés in the Kurdish republic’s regional government. That is hardly a platform for defeating an organization which has its reach right up into Syria, across Iraq and into North Africa. It is far too small. And as even the director of operations, the Chief of the Defense Staff in the US has admitted that it was having almost a negligible effect on the ISIS.
The Americans, and presumably the British, have ruled themselves out of a really direct involvement in Iraq and ruled themselves out of Syria. So, really, there is very little that they can do at this moment. They can lend a little bit of advice here and there, but probably the most useful advice that is coming in Iraq and has been in Syria, it is coming from Iran, rather than from Washington or from London, or Paris.
And it was both Russia and Iran, who were the states that responded directly to Prime Minister Maliki’s call for assistance, when the ISIS made their thrust into Iraq in June, lending aircraft, which were vitally important, and providing a direct assistance, whereas the West stood back and said – nothing can happen until Prime Minister Maliki is removed and a new inclusive government is formed.
You are saying that the UK and the US have kind of stepped back, but today I've seen a series of reports about an allegedly failed US operation on rescuing the American citizens in Syria. Do you think that the beheading of the US citizen could actually result in Americans taking harsher action?
Alastair Crooke: I don’t think so, because it is very hard, unless there was a major turnabout by President Obama, who would then accept to have boots on the ground and a direct American involvement. I don’t think that part alone will resolve it. Even now they are using aircraft coming from the Gulf to bomb the targets.
But as I said, ISIS is well-led militarily and I think they will respond to this as they did in Syria, around Aleppo, by dispersing their units, by dispersing their personnel, by moving the heavy equipment or the surface-to-air missiles and other things into urban areas. And then, to sort of slowly infiltrate people back into urban areas, where they ultimately will then become a formation again. And it is very difficult for the Americans to bomb these.
And I think it exposes some of the contradictions of the American policy, because at the moment America is very clear in saying that what it is doing, is defending the Kurds and defending its consulates and embassies in Baghdad, i.e. the American people, but not the Iraqis as a whole. That’s their aim at the moment.
And the question is – what are they trying to do? Are they trying to enable Kurdistan through the Peshmerga to defeat ISIS? That is not plausible, that is not probable, it is a fantasy. They might be able to defend their own interests, but no more. So, what are they doing? Are they going to try and enable Iraq as a whole, the state of Iraq, all of Iraq to fight ISIS? And then, what about Syria? Does this involve Syria?
At the moment, it seems to me that what they are doing, in fact, is possibly making things more complicated, because most of the Sunni tribes that are adjacent to the Kurdish regional government, that lie alongside their areas, have sided with ISIS. And so, as I say, ISIS is likely to put its men and equipment into the urban areas. So, are the Americans then going to begin to bomb the Sunnis?
If they begin to bomb the Sunnis where they suspect the ISIS are hiding or have merged into the urban area, and there are Sunni casualties, then what is price of their call for the Iraqi Government to come together and fight the ISIS as a whole, including the Shia, the Kurds and the Sunni. I think it makes it very difficult.
And it just underlines the lack of strategy in the Western thinking at the moment, because at present their ‘mission creep’, unless there is a fundamental shift in alignments, seems destined to take them towards actually a greater conflict with the Sunni population in the north. And this will actually make it harder for the Kurds, but it will also make it harder for Iraq, as a whole, to come together in the face of ISIS.
So, do I get it right that they are also sending, so to say, a black mark to the European security agencies, that this so-called Jihad could come over to Europe?
Alastair Crooke: Very clearly, that’s the message. That’s what I meant when I said that having someone with the British accent narrate and execute an American, it shows very clearly that there are British and Europeans who adhere to ISIS thinking and doctrine or are the members of ISIS, and that this is a direct threat to their own societies. So, I think it caused considerable anxieties in Europe and in Britain.
But really, I think the problem is that they don’t know what to do about it. You know, ISIS didn’t come out of nowhere. It came out of Syria. It came out of the circumstances and was facilitated by the Western supported insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad. I mean, there is no doubt about that. So, there is a real sense of conundrum about how to deal with it therefore, because they would like to see ISIS defeated.
They are quite concerned about its direct threat. But, on the other hand, they are not yet ready, it seems, to change their policies in Syria. They are not yet ready to change their policies towards collaboration, or be it independently with Iran, and they are not prepared to say the necessary tough words to the Gulf States and to Saudi Arabia.
So, I think there is an impasse and they don’t know what to do. The character of the European policy at the moment is that they don’t know what to do about Iraq, they don’t know what to do about Syria, they don’t know what to do about Russia or Ukraine, they don’t know what to do about China, they don’t know what to do about their internal economy. We are in a dangerous period when the European policies are at an impasse, they are blocked and incapable of making decisions on so many of these key issues.
In that case, could Iran or, perhaps, Russia help Europe in this situation? Could we come up with some kind of solution?
Alastair Crooke: I think, of course. It is perfectly true that it’s Russia that has been the only state that has come up with any realistic solution for what is happening in Syria, and has pursued it against a considerable headwinds coming from America and Europe.
Also, I think that in terms of the atmospherics with Iran, Russia has played an extremely positive role within the P5+1 in at least trying to push America and the Europeans towards moving away from their very rigid and narrow interpretation of what constitutes the breakout capacity, towards some more realistic proposals that might bring a solution to the nuclear issue in Iran.
By supplying aircraft promptly to Baghdad, they have also made a difference, although it is small at this stage, within Iraq. But the Russian position and its policies in this period, and this is not to make the point too softly, is going to be crucial in determining the future of the whole of the ME.
To the extent to which Russia is capable of protecting itself now against the moves to exclude it from the financial system or to exert pain on it through the financial system and through the sanctions, to the degree that Russia and its President comes out well from this contest scented in Iraq and is not beaten or made to submit, will depend the future of the orientation of much of the ME.
To the extent that Obama comes out on top in the Ukrainian issue, will of course then strengthen the resolve of the Gulf States and others’ attempt to reinforce the existing global order, which most believe is flawed and should be replaced.
So, the Russian policy, not just in sending aircraft, but in the degree to which it can really produce a parallel financial system, the degree it can amass the political support towards changing the global international order, it is going to have an impact far beyond military support or military measures on the region. And it will help to, perhaps, find not just the ME but the strategic future for most of us.
