by Prof. Eyal Zisser
A fight such as this can go on for years, as the reality prevalent in Europe is not about to change.
Europe is learning the
hard way what Israel learned decades ago. The war on terror is an
ongoing struggle with ups and downs, and always painful failures. This
fight requires patience and determination. There is no magic knockout
punch, not by a spectacular military operation in the Syrian hinterlands
or the assassination of some terrorist cell or another in a Paris or
London suburb. A fight such as this can go on for years, as the reality
prevalent in Europe is not about to change.
An equally important
lesson, which Europe is also about to learn, is that terror constantly
changes shape. In the past, al-Qaida spearheaded the waves of terrorist
attacks in Europe. Now Islamic State has taken the reigns, and we can
assume that if it fades and disappears, another Islamist group will take
its place. The name and the headlines will change, to be sure, but the
ideology will remain the same; the targets will continue to be innocent
civilians across Europe, and the attackers will continue to be the same
Muslim youths so enraptured by religious madness. It will be no
different than our experience in Israel.
The terrorist attack
perpetrated by Islamic State in London came on the heels of stinging
defeats in its strongholds in Syria and Iraq. The organization's dream
of establishing an Islamic caliphate is on the verge of falling apart
with the approaching fall of its government centers in Mosul, Iraq and
Raqqa, Syria, which serves as its capital. The organization has already
lost nearly half the territory it once held, and the signals being sent
by the new administration in Washington point to U.S. President Donald
Trump's willingness and even determination to send American troops into
the fray to fight the organization in a decisive manner.
Islamic State's defeat
will apparently induce a monumental battle between the winners -- Iran
and its allies -- on one side, and Turkey and the moderate Arab states
on the other. Iran, to be certain, will try filling the void left by
Islamic State by establishing a land corridor from Tehran to Beirut. Its
adversaries, meanwhile, will try preventing the Islamic republic from
achieving its goals. All this, while Russia and the U.S. will watch from
the sidelines and perhaps even fan the flames in order to advance their
own interests in the region.
What is important to
understand, however, is that the defeat of Islamic State and the fall of
the country it created in the Middle East will not be the end of the
story, not for the organization itself and certainly not for the
ideology it espouses. We must keep in mind that Islamic State is first
and foremost an extremist ideology, which enjoys support from local
populations in the Middle East and from Muslim communities across the
globe.
It is also an
organization that rallies support from disenfranchised populations in
the region -- which feel persecuted by their centralized governments --
whether these are Sunnis in Iraq or eastern Syria, or Bedouin tribes in
the Sinai Peninsula. Thus, even if the state it created in eastern Syria
and northern Iraq crumbles, we can assume Islamic State will withdraw
deep into the desert from which it came and shift to operating as a
ruthless underground organization that still enjoys support from local
populations. Case in point, in Sinai the group continues to operate
successfully despite being pummeled by Egypt.
Islamic State also has
other areas within which it can operate, such as Libya or Yemen, where
it has established footholds under the cover of the civil wars
persisting there unabated. There has been a great deal of speculation
recently over the possibility that the group could transfer its
government centers to these places. Finally, sentiment for the
organization and its ideas will continue to inspire and compel Muslim
youths from across the globe to carry out terrorist attacks. Other
radical Islamist organizations, which are more than willing to pick up
where Islamic State ends, are also vying for the hearts and minds of
these youths.
The waves of terror, therefore,
will continue crashing into Europe, despite all the efforts to stop them
and despite the military successes against Islamic State's leaders and
commanders in Syria and Iraq. Yet the fight must remain unrelenting, as
this is the nature of the war against terror. It is the only way to
ensure normal life in Europe. As the Israeli experience teaches, this
should be the goal, even with the knowledge that terror has not been
completely defeated.
Prof. Eyal Zisser
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=18703
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