Aug 28, 2015
The ISIS atrocities have
descended like distant nightmares upon the numbed conscious of the world. The
first beheadings of Americans had the power to shock, but since then there has
been a steady barrage of inhumanity: mass executions of Christians and others,
throwing gay men from rooftops, the destruction of ancient archaeological
treasures, the routine use of poison gas.
Even the recent reports in The
Times about the Islamic State's highly structured rape program have produced
shock but barely a ripple of action.
And yet something bigger is
going on. It's as if some secret wormhole into different historical epoch has
been discovered and the knowledge of centuries is being unlearned.
This is happening in the moral
sphere. State-sponsored slavery seemed like a thing of the past, but now ISIS
is an unapologetic slave state. Yazidi women are carefully cataloged,
warehoused and bid upon.
The rapes are theocratized.
The rapists pray devoutly before and after the act. The religious leader's
handbook governing the rape program has a handy Frequently Asked Questions
section for the young rapists:
"Question 12: May a man
kiss the female slave of another, with the owner's permission?
"A man may not kiss the
female slave of another, for kissing [involves] pleasure, and pleasure is
prohibited unless [the man] owns [the slave] exclusively.
"Question 13: Is it
permissible to have intercourse with a female slave who hasn't reached puberty?
"It is permissible to
have intercourse with the female slave who hasn't reached puberty if she is fit
for intercourse; however, if she is not fit for intercourse it is enough to
enjoy her without intercourse."
This wasn't supposed to happen
in the 21st century. Western experts have stared the thing in the face, trying
to figure out the cause and significance of the moral disaster we are
witnessing. There was a very fine essay in The New York Review of Books by a
veteran Middle East expert who chose to remain anonymous and who more or less
threw up his hands.
"The clearest evidence
that we do not understand this phenomenon is our consistent inability to
predict -- still less control -- these developments," the author writes.
Every time we think ISIS has appalled the world and sabotaged itself, it holds
its own or gains strength.
Writing in The National
Interest, Ross Harrison shows how the ISIS wormhole into a different moral
epoch is accompanied by a political wormhole designed to take the Middle East
into a different geostrategic epoch. For the past many decades the Middle East
has been defined by nation- states and the Arab mind has been influenced by
nationalism. But these nation-states have been weakened (Egypt) or destroyed
(Iraq and Syria). Nationalism no longer mobilizes popular passion or provides a
convincing historical narrative.
ISIS has arisen, Harrison
argues, to bury nationalism and to destroy the Arab nation-state.
"It is tapping into a
belief that the pre-nationalist Islamic era represents the glorious halcyon
days for the Arab world, while the later era in which secular nationalism
flourished was one of decline and foreign domination," he writes.
ISIS consistently tries to
destroy the borders between nation-states. It undermines, confuses or smashes
national identities. It eliminates national and pre-caliphate memories.
Meanwhile, it offers a
confident vision of the future: a unified caliphate. It fills the vacuum left
by decaying nationalist ideologies. As Harrison puts it, "ISIS has cut off
almost all pathways to a future other than its self-proclaimed caliphate. The
intent is to use this as a wedge with which to expand beyond its base in Iraq
and Syria and weaken secular nationalist bonds in Lebanon, Jordan and in even
more innately nationalist countries like Egypt."
President Obama has said that
ISIS stands for nothing but savagery. That's clearly incorrect. Our military
leaders speak of the struggle against ISIS as an attempt to kill as many ISIS
leaders and soldiers as possible. But this is a war about a vision of history.
ISIS ideas have legitimacy because it controls territory and has a place to
enact them.
So far the response to ISIS
has been pathetic. The U.S. pledged $500 million to train and equip Syrian
moderates, hoping to create 15,000 fighters. After three years we turned out a
grand total of 60 fighters, of whom a third were immediately captured.
It's time to stop
underestimating this force as some group of self-discrediting madmen. ISIS is a
moral and political threat to the fragile and ugly stability that exists in
what's left in the Middle East. ISIS will thrive and spread its ideas for as
long as it has its land.
We are looking into a future
with a resurgent Iran, a contagious ISIS and a collapsing state order. If this
isn't a cause for alarm and reappraisal, I don't know what is.
