We need a coalition of principles to beat terror
Islamic State is as much an idea as a military force. To combat it, the West has to adopt a whole new strategy
Terror attacks, most recently in Manchester and London, remind us that we are at war, a global war, and that the enemy is Islamic extremism, radicalisation and terror.
The Islamic State phenomenon radicalises Muslim individuals and inspires them to carry out terror attacks that defy intelligence and law enforcement organisations, which are more apt at foiling attacks planned by organised terror groups. It is a viral phenomenon, which has the ability to radicalise people remotely by exploiting the connectivity made possible by social networks.
It preys especially on young Sunni Muslims, who constitute in its view a reservoir from which it draws its individual disciples and recruits. These Muslim individuals, who fall prey to the Islamic State’s ideology and well-oiled influence machine, may be citizens or newly arrived refugees, people with or without criminal records, or seasoned “foreign fighters” returning home from the killing fields of Syria and Iraq.
They may have access to airport terminals, government offices, shopping malls, concert halls, nightclubs, and places of worship. Indeed, one of them may be a pilot, a mechanic, a porter, a truck driver, or a disgruntled soldier. They are very hard to identify in advance and their attacks are therefore very hard to foil.
The threat that the Islamic State phenomenon (as opposed to the Islamic State organisation) presents is first and foremost an internal threat.
Contending with this threat is made all the more difficult because of the asymmetry which exists between Western liberal democracies and Islamic State as far as the sanctity of life, human and civil rights and the use of force are concerned. The tension between security and democracy is exploited by Islamic extremists, while Western and especially European democracies often fight with their hands tied behind their backs.
A first necessary step towards rectifying the situation is to acknowledge the threat. Once that is done, real qualitative change will usually be manifested in legislation, the beginnings of which can be seen in some countries in Europe.
If the threat is not acknowledged and the collective survival instinct doesn’t kick-in, it may delay the new legislation and the “cultural” change required in order to enable intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight terror effectively at home and to co-operate more freely and extensively with their counterparts abroad. Co-operation is essential on both the internal level, between the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in a certain country, and on the international level in the framework of inter-governmental organisations such as Interpol or Europol, or between sister agencies in different countries.
The lack of co-operation and problems with the flow of information between the various agencies have come up repeatedly since September 11 as one of the main causes of failure to foil terror attacks in advance.
But international co-operation is needed now at the highest level as well. Like-minded world leaders need to get together in order to agree on a set of general principles regarding the war on Islamic radicalisation, extremism and terror, from which each country can then derive its own particular “rules of engagement”.
Building a Coalition of Principles now is not less important than the military coalition created in 2014 to fight the Islamic State organisation, as it can strengthen the ability of individual governments to cope with the internal threat. Such a set of agreed general principles can provide individual governments with a source of authority and the political and moral support they need in order to make necessary but not always popular or politically correct changes, and to take the steps required for dealing more effectively with the various dimensions of the threat. These general principles can address, for example, legislation regarding incitement, the responsibilities of multinational corporations and social networks in the war against Islamic extremism, radicalisation and terror, intelligence collection and sharing within states and between states, search and seizure operations, interrogation and preventative detention and arrest.
They can also include a binding commitment by all the participants to adopt and uphold the highest security standards in the field of civil aviation, on which the Islamic State has put its sights, and where security is only as good as its weakest link.
The creation of such a Coalition of Principles, and the joint public declaration which should accompany it, could help to mobilise law enforcement and intelligence agencies and impress upon them the importance of co-operation. It could also galvanise public support by sending an important message: the war against Islamic extremism, radicalisation and terror will be fought by governments and not be left to the “street” in a way that can lead to anarchy.