Reports have emerged of civilian casualties as a result of US led airstrikes in Syria – and on groups unrelated to ISIS. We utterly condemn the United States government’s bombing campaign and the motley crew of allies from some of their client regimes in the Muslim world, as well as other colonialist states. We hold no brief for ISIS, but it is clear that they are the excuse for intervention not the reason.

In the light of these events we make the following comments:

1. Manufacturing a reason for intervention

Britain, the United States and many colonial countries have faced a problem insofar as the wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) have made their populations increasingly sceptical about spending billions on wars because of the exaggerated threat levels and even outright lies they have seen in the past to justify foreign and domestic policies. It is frankly absurd that Obama has argued that this situation poses a global threat requiring a coalition of 40 countries and a 10-year engagement!

The exaggerated concerns expressed by the West about ISIS destabilising the region can be seen when set against the scale of the violence from the regime of Bashar al Assad against the Syrian people – causing the deaths of over 150, 000 people and forcing millions more to become refugees – whilst the West took on the role of a bystander.

2. The US wishes to further its long-standing objectives. These are:

1. The desire to quell the call for the Khilafah Rashidah and establish a secular regime in Syria. The dynamics of the Syrian revolution have made a viable secular alternative to Assad very difficult to find. Initially, the West did not even oppose Assad despite his massacres. Later, there was an attempt to build a Western endorsed opposition but this has no credibility with the people, whose Islamic sentiments have been very apparent. In addition, Iran has been persistent in backing its strategic ally Assad. Hence ISIS has become a bargaining tool to bring all parties on board in order to extract some movement from all of them to finding a new secular client regime in Syria that will be tolerated by all and serve Western interests.Indeed, despite the rhetoric, the collaboration with the Assad regime is now more open so the US said it informed the Syrian envoy to the UN of the planned airstrikes in Raqqa and Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad told NBC on September 11 that Assad has “no reservations whatsoever” about US airstrikes in Raqqa, saying they are fighting a “common enemy”.This is further borne out by reports of strikes in parts of Syria where ISIS has no presence and attacks on brigades that have nothing to do with ISIS.
2. The long standing U.S. plans to divide Iraq. The combination of sectarianism inspired by the Bremner constitution of 2003 and the shameless behaviour of the Maliki regime for many years has created the environment in which Sunni tribes (who expelled ISIS’s predecessor organization in the region) now prefer to tolerate them as an alternative to the government in Baghdad. The result is that Iraq is closer to division into a Kurdish state, a Shia state and a Sunni state, with Baghdad housing the huge US embassy – a city within the city.
3. Western colonial states are so opposed to any step towards Islamic revival that they watched in silence as their ally Sisi brutally crushed Morsi’s government in Egypt. They have systematically demonized the Islamic sentiments of many of the sincere brigades in Syria who are defending the people from Bashar. Now ISIS offers them the perfect excuse to demonise Islam further and directly intervene in the region.

3. Colonialism is the problem. Khilafah Rashidah is the solution.

ISIS is a symptom of the real problem that has destabilized the region.

The reason for that destabilization is Western colonial interference – whether directly or via their proxies in the form of the motley crew of corrupt despots who are called ‘rulers’ in the Middle East. Western military and political intervention in the Muslim world is always for ulterior motives other than the rhetoric of security, stability or intervention. We should try to understand the current US plans for the region, and see the ISIS phenomenon and the plans to intervene in that context.

The solution to the decades of destabilization is the re-establishment of the Khilafah Rashidah that would unify the Ummah. Such a real Khilafah would be welcomed by the people of the region of all religions  – regardless of religion, sect or race – because it would implement the Shari’ah of Allah to bring solutions to societal problems, looking after the affairs of the people.

But it would also expel the colonialist interests in the region. It is not ‘terrorism’ the West fears, but the liberation of the Muslim world from their hegemony!

 Dr Abdul Wahid