9 July 2014
Last month, amid a welter of slaughter and torture, a new
Islamic Caliphate was proclaimed on the territories of Syria and Iraq. This new political creation resembles a
balloon: one pinprick and it will collapse.
The Islamic Caliphate was created by a homicidal egomaniac
who now calls himself Caliph Ibrahim.
Previously he went under the alias of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. He sees himself as the second coming of
Mohammed, except with a better taste in wristwatches. The new Caliphate rests on the bayonets of
some six thousand men, half of whom are foreigners from Britain, France,
Australia, Canada, and the United States.
The appeal of fighting for the Caliphate among these men is the feeling
of fighting for Islamic righteousness, i.e. jihad; and the chance to gratify
the darkest of human desires. As proof,
thousands of unarmed civilians and captured soldiers have been gruesomely
executed by ISIS members, and few of these were by crucifixion. These executions have been posted on social
media for the entertainment of some and the terrorization of others.
ISIS, for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is the name
of the terrorist entity. Failing to make
further headway against the forces loyal to Syrian president Bashir al Assad,
ISIS turned east in June and advanced against an utterly demoralized and
unprofessionally led Iraqi military. The
Iraqi forces either deserted or retired before the advance, and allowed ISIS to
occupy Mosul, the second largest city of Iraq.
ISIS occupies a portion of the Sunni majority area of Iraq. It has made no effort to advance into Iraqi
Kurdistan, which is stoutly defended by the Peshmerga, the tough Kurdish
militia; or into Jordan. The rapid ISIS
advance stalled north of Baghdad, where Sunni majority Iraq begins.
Some rather breathless western commentators have said that
ISIS is transforming itself into a real army.
All that has been seen in film clips, however, are civilian pickup
trucks sporting mounted machine guns, and disordered bodies of men firing
automatic weapons aimlessly into the unseen distance for the benefit of the
camera crew. ISIS may have captured some
Iraqi and Syrian military equipment and fighting vehicles and put them on
display for the cameras.
There’s many a slip twixt lip and cup. It is one thing to be able to drive a
fighting vehicle and quite another to coordinate the tactical use of groupings
of fighting machines in battle. All the
ISIS has demonstrated with their fighting vehicles is the capacity to drive in
convoy. ISIS has never demonstrated the
capacity to maneuver in battalion and brigade sized formations in open
battle. They have no air power. With only six thousand real fighting men,
half of whom are foreign adventurers, oppressing millions, Caliph Ibrahim makes
a lot of boasts.
In his first public pronouncements, Caliph Ibrahim promised
to make terrorist attacks against the United States and called upon all Muslims
to “obey” him. A Caliphate is a special
thing in Islamic history and teaching; it is the empire of the Ummah, the
believers, and the Caliph is the head of state and theocratic absolute
monarch. A Caliphate would hold that the
Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and the Republics of Turkey, Egypt, and
Iran would be vassal states under its suzerainty and the Kings and presidents
of these countries are vassals. Perhaps
some confused western diplomats, seeking clarification, might ask the
governments of these countries if they planned to “obey” the new Caliph;
whether their countries should now be regarded as subordinate entities to the
new Caliphate, and if not, why not.
The new Caliphate and self-proclaimed Caliph Ibrahim
represent a political crisis in Islam, first and foremost. His threat to western countries is a separate
matter.
By proclaiming a new Caliphate and establishing Mosul as its
capital, Caliph Ibrahim has created hostages to fortune. He is no longer the head of an ethereal
terrorist organization that exists nowhere in particular and is responsible for
the governance of nothing. An act of
terrorism committed against a NATO country, or any other country, would
constitute an act of war by the Caliphate.
Mosul may not be as pleasant a place to govern from after it was
flattened from a visit from the United States Air Force in retaliation for a
Caliphate sponsored act of terrorism.
Enjoy the Caliphate while it lasts. Its strength is grossly overestimated; it has
no political legitimacy, and has made too many enemies in the Muslim world.
-30-
Published in the August, 2014 edition of Esprit de Corps magazine.
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