Military alone cannot defeat Islamic State

The UAE maintains that neither Daesh nor the Syrian regime can be checked on a military basis alone, and calls for effective political action

It is instructive to be in the UAE capital and gain an authentic Arab perspective on crucial events when, after last month’s Paris attacks, the world is reeling under the fear of the spread of the influence of the terrorist outfit Daesh (Islamic State), and worrying about how to put the genie back into the bottle.

The crisis in Syria, where the West seeks a “regime change” and wants President Bashar al-Assad out while Russia and Iran have defended his regime from Daesh military assaults and those by the West-backed “moderate” opposition to Assad- is still playing out five years after the troubles began, and is emerging as the mother of all tumults in the West Asian theatre for now since non-Arab powers are militarily involved.

When the Daesh and the Syrian issues have got inextricably linked (since Daesh has based its capital in north-central Syria), the voices we hear on the complex crisis are generally western, as news stories about the bombardment of Daesh positions by Russian and Nato planes abound. Arab anxieties openly expressed, and Arab solutions on offer, are plainly absent from view.

It is in this context that it was refreshing last week to hear Dr Anwar Gargash, the influential minister of state for foreign affairs, as a part of a package of briefings for international journalists on the eve of the celebration of the UAE’s 44th National Day (December 2).

Even as leading western powers have authorised air strikes against Daesh, Dr Gargash holds that no effective plan has emerged to challenge Daesh. The first challenge in the Arab region is that of terrorism and extremism, and this is a long-term challenge. Military means alone cannot meet it, and financial instruments and effective education methodologies will need to be harnessed as what extremism has done is to “kidnap our religion” (Islam).

The UAE maintains that neither Daesh nor the Syrian regime can be checked on a military basis alone, and calls for effective political action. “No one can win a war in Syria,” says Dr Gargash. While the UAE would like the Assad regime to be displaced as it believes it has killed 3,50,000 of its own citizens, it does not want the Syrian state to “suddenly collapse”, and believes that “a transition is needed”.

The UAE position is that the existence of the Syrian state is “essential”.

After the ravaging of Iraq and Libya following US-led western military interventions to effect “regime change”, this is a salutary warning that stems from local Arab experience, and can be said to arise from a deep concern to protect Arab society, culture and economy matters that cannot be paramount in the considerations of foreign powers.

The interventions of outside powers — western and Russian — “complicates the picture”, in Dr Gargash’s view. “The time for dependence on western alliances in the Gulf is past”, the high official notes as he maintains that “the age of US intervention in Kuwait is over”.

Such openly articulated and clear Arab views on the severe crisis in West Asia are rare, and therefore refreshing, although it is far from clear how much thought the Arab world has given in its inner confabulations to dealing with the Syrian crisis and Daesh.

In Yemen, UAE became part of the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition to protect the (Sunni) regime against the (Shia) Houthi rebels. Soldiers who fell in the campaign have been honoured as “martyrs” to the country’s cause who fought to maintain “stability” in the Arab peninsula.

According to Dr Gargash, the military operation was needed to pre-empt any intervention on the part of Iran, the world’s primary Shia power situated on the periphery of Arab lands in West Asia. The germane question is whether an Arab military coalition against an agency like Daesh — a Sunni entity — can be brought into being on account of sectarian considerations.

The UAE minister says his country “will put ground forces to combat terrorism”, and had called for (Arab) ground forces in Iraq two years ago. “We have to shoulder some of the responsibility,” he notes. These are brave words, although it is not clear how much intra-Arab diplomatic effort has been invested in this direction.

For some years, the UAE, unlike other Gulf Arab states, has sought to present itself as a modernist, moderate and progressive force. Dr Lubna al Qasimi, the UAE minister for international cooperation and development, informed the international media that the UAE emerged as the world’s largest donor in 2013 and 2014 in terms of overseas development assistance seen as a proportion of the donor’s GDP.

The world’s fifth largest oil producer and seventh largest gas producer is also seeking to arrive on the stage as a producer of renewable sources of energy such as nuclear and solar power. On the social and political side, emphasises Dr Gargash, UAE desires “an Arab region that respects diversity and pluralism, not a Shia or Sunni Arab region”.

There are evidently strong similarities between the traditional world view of India and the emerging outlook of UAE in the social sphere and that of regional politics. Both privilege pluralism and tolerance, and desire the end of external intervention in regional affairs.

And yet, the level of engagement between the two still seems to hinge exclusively on the fact that the UAE hosts the largest contingent of Indians abroad, and is among India’s largest trading partners even in the non-oil sector.

It is time both sides sought to pave the way for a new dimension in their relationship to emerge. Political engagement, and collaboration where feasible in regional affairs, is a prospect worth exploring- even in respect of the crisis in Syria, and certainly in respect of combating extremism and terrorism. It is time to begin talking strategic convergences- and this is a long-term bridge to build.