TALKING WITH TERRORISTS
Author Loretta Napoleoni on how we created the Islamic State ‘Frankenstein,’
One of the Europe’s top experts in terrorism financing thinks the next few months will be crucial for the survival of the Islamic State.
If U.S. President Barack Obama’s coalition of nations against the Islamic State, including Canada, fails to stop the terrorist group’s push through the heart of Syria and Iraq, the world may reach the point of no return and have no choice but to negotiate.
“If we do not succeed, we will have to deal with them,” says Italian economist Loretta Napoleoni, a former Fulbright scholar who now lives in London and Montana.
Napoleoni’s new book, The Islamist Phoenix: The Islamic State and the Redrawing of the Middle East, stretched the limits of publishing: she was updating it until the day before it went to print. This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
You make a series of jarring assertions in the book. For instance: “To many, the Islamic State’s main aim is to be for Sunni Muslims what Israel is for Jews: a state in their ancient land, reclaimed in modern times; a powerful religious state that protects them wherever they are.” Did you worry that statement would offend people?
You know what, they didn’t say anything. The book came out in Italy on Nov. 19 and the Jewish lobby in Italy is huge . . . But you know, the Islamic State has not said one bad thing about Israel. They are not engaging. Osama bin Laden used to talk a lot about Israel and our brothers in Palestine but these guys do not even mention Palestine …
It is a completely different political animal. They are modern. They have realized Israel is there to stay. I mean, this is the 21st century.
You make the point that the Islamic State’s movements in Iraq and Syria are brutal and evil, but it was just as bad in the Balkans. However, social media wasn’t there to watch it.
Ten years ago we didn’t know what was happening in Iraq, if you think about it, because there was no social media . . . I’m sure the official media has seen these kinds of atrocities, but can you put them on the front of the New York Times or the Toronto Star? But you can put them on YouTube.
You compare the rise of the Islamic State to the rise of the Roman state. To whom would you compare Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group’s leader?
I think maybe I would compare him to Augustus, you know the transition from the Republican monarchy of Rome to the Empire, the reorganization of Rome. Or you could compare him to one of the big leaders of the 19th century. (Bolshevik leader Vladimir) Lenin, for example. He has this vision to lead to a certain strategy and action. And he did everything by himself. He is very much the brain behind all of this.
You said in the book that every time the West gets involved — look at Iraq and Afghanistan — we mess it up. We pay for it for decades. We create “Frankenstein” states.
That is why the title is The Islamist Phoenix. This is a phoenix. We thought we had got rid of all of them, with the surge and the Sunni awakening. The media didn’t mention the Jihadist movements for several years . . . and then, all of a sudden, you get this monster that is 10 times stronger than the others. How is this possible?
Another question I’d like to pose is, what is the intelligence doing? To a certain extent, this is another 9/11. Not in terms of the tragedy, but it took the entire world by surprise.
From one day to the next, these guys became the No. 1 enemy of the West. Out of thin air, this monster arrives. What was intelligence doing? Even the media. What did they report? They must have known the Islamic State was there.
Are the intelligence communities, the scholars, not as smart as we think they are?
I don’t know, this is what I’d like to find out . . . All these guys come on shows, write columns, are interviewed by the press and they missed it. Who are they? What are they doing? That puts us in the position of wondering about the security we have.
Is Iraq lost forever?
I think Iraq will have to be partitioned. It will be interesting to watch what is happening in the next few months. If we can go beyond the propaganda, we really don’t know what is going on there.
The battle of Kobani, I think, is the most important example of how little we know. Is that city free or not? Who is controlling it? Who knows? For the last two and a half months, with the bombing, the army, all the intervention, they haven’t managed to get the Islamic State out of Kobani. So I don’t know. I don’t know how easy it will be to get rid of the Islamic State if we can’t reconquer a tiny little town on the border.
Kathy Gannon, The Associated Press reporter who covered Afghanistan and who was recently wounded, said recently that the fighting is all about power, not religion. Do you believe this?
Of course. Yes. This is not about religion. Religion is an instrument they are using to do ethnic cleansing so they can create the most homogeneous state possible. If everyone is equal you don’t have a problem with multi-ethnicity . . . The real goal here is to create a state that is not a religious state only, but a political one. It isn’t a theocracy.
Al-Baghdadi has a PhD in theology . . . but it is not like the Khomeini revolution. It’s not like the Ayatollah. There are people who are not, who don’t have a religious characterization or title (who are) active in the caliphate. I don’t think in that (respect) it is similar to Iran. It is more similar to Israel, where religion is the glue that keeps people together and of course, justifies legitimating of the state, reclaiming my land that belongs to me.
Do you think the Islamic State leaders will be shaking the hands of EU leaders?
I think it is possible. Never say never. We shook hands with (former Libyan dictator Moammar) Gadhafi for God’s sake. I think it is possible. I don’t think it’ll happen in the short term, if we don’t destroy them. But if we do destroy them, something else will come back in five or six years, and even stronger. If we do not succeed, I think we will have to deal with them. We can’t have a state like that in the Middle East.
But nobody wants to bring back the troops.
I think you can use the battle of Kobani. It is a war by proxy. We are funding these Kurds. We thought they were amazing fighters but clearly they can’t win by themselves, with our weapons and the bombings.
What is going to happen next in the war with the Islamic State?
Next is the consolidation. They have no interest in going south of Baghdad because it is all Shia . . . This is a war by conquest of a territory that is predominantly a favourable territory for them and this is why it works.
For us it is a war of conquest, for them it is a war of liberation . . . Kurdistan is debatable because, of course, it is predominantly Sunni. They could carve out a section of Kurdistan.
And then there is Jordan. There is a Hashemite monarchy, put there by the British, so I think Jordan is a risk . . . Jordan is a possibility but I don’t think at the moment they’ll do it. That would be overstretching.