Lesson for Trump in Baghdadi death

The world’s most wanted man, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of the Islamic State, could not have been killed without the active help of the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Force, the one that Donald Trump betrayed earlier this month in yet another display of complete ignorance. That ignorance would have been alright were it not so damaging for America’s and the free world’s strategic interests. And if it did not open space in the resulting vacuum for the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, to move in with his own dangerous agenda. Over a decade, Baghdadi had defied the most intensive search-and-kill operation mounted by the US Special Forces, the one which killed Osama bin Laden. Periodic reports of his being killed all turned out to be false. However, last week working on information provided by the Kurds-led SDF, the US Special Forces zeroed in on an area in north-western Syria from where only a few days earlier Trump had ordered out the small complement of the US forces, leaving the way clear for Turkey to butcher Kurds. Aerial assault accompanied by physical search finally forced the world’s most evil man, responsible for unheard of barbarism against fellow men, women and children. He activated his suicide vest to kill self and his three children, according to reports. Why was Baghdadi hiding in this area where he was least expected is not known. The tunnel hide-out was dynamited by powerful explosives, leaving him no choice but to take his own life. The IS at one time had established its so-called caliphate in Mosul, Iraq, but after a long and bloody war with multinational forces it was driven out. At its peak, IS had over 40,000 fighters drawn from all over the Islamic world. The devilish ideology which threatened to physically eliminate all but the faithful Muslims from the face of the earth followed a retrogressive version of Islam, treated its women as chattels. It also found adherents through a clever use of the modern tools of communication popularized by the US tech giants. Baghdadi was on the internet though he was rarely seen in flesh and blood even by his closest lieutenants. No doubt, the peace-loving world has reason to be satisfied by his end, but there is no cause for celebration. For the obscurantist version of Islam he espoused, that is, establishing the Islamic Caliphate at the point of the sword, still survives. His deputy too is said to have been killed a couple of days after his suicide. But such organisations have a ready pool of warriors to fill the vacuum. The Taliban in Afghanistan are only different from IS insofar as thus far they have confined their ambitions to that country alone, though in terms of barbaric practices they are only a shade less savage than the IS. Meanwhile, it sounded ridiculous for Trump to assemble a whole host of senior civilian and military leaders around him to make the announcement of Baghdadi’s death. He was clearly aping his successor, Barack Obama, who had broken the news of Osama’s killing who was traced deep inside Pakistan by the US Special Forces. It may be mentioned here that Baghdadi was an underling of Osama, but, ironically, even the latter found him extraordinarily savage in his methods against non-believers and expelled him from al-Qaeda.

The lesson Trump must draw from Baghdadi’s killing is that the US must not abandon its global responsibilities. As the world’s strongest economic and military power it has a key role to defend democracy and freedom against the forces of darkness and evil, the kind the IS and the Taliban represent. Being a world power entails costs. America has paid them willingly in the past, though thanks to a wholly foolish war against Iraq and the seemingly unending bloodletting in Afghanistan there is a popular backlash against the US playing the global cop. A wise leader will navigate this narrative in such a manner as to educate his people against narrow-mindedness and parochialism, which eventually would bring the threat of evil forces at the door of the Americans themselves. Instead, Trump has further instigated a withdrawal of the US from areas of vital security interest, be it in Europe or Asia. His recklessness will wreck the post-Cold War consensus, opening the floodgates for dictators and authoritarian oligarchs to move in. Such a scary scenario must be averted at all costs.