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Once we saw those plumes of smoke spiralling up from positions around the Mosul dam after American air strikes, it was dismally likely we would soon again encounter another familiar image. How many times have we seen, or been forced to imagine, that anonymous room, tent or corner of the desert where a kneeling hostage is about to be done to death, after a specious and sententious speech from his killer, as punishment for America’s crimes?
There is no action without reaction in the Middle East. At least since the Lebanese civil war, one way some of those in conflict with the United States and its allies have expressed their rage, taken their revenge and attempted to influence the policies of their enemies, has been to lead out an innocent man or woman and murder them. In recent years they have done it on camera. What made this case even more disturbing was the educated British accent of the killer as he excoriated President Barack Obama, justified the murder and said the life of another US journalist was at stake.
That one college boy from, perhaps, London should be the killer of another college boy from New Hampshire in a conflict over the future of the Middle East illustrates how far normal boundaries of state and class have been cruelly transcended.
American policy, of course, will not change, and nor will that of its close allies. But David Cameron has returned from his holidays to weigh the situation, while President François Hollande, saying events have not been as threatening since 2001, plans to call an international conference on the threat posed by Islamic State (Isis). The video is one of a number of developments that have sharpened our understanding of the risks inherent in a new military campaign in the region, even if limited and carefully conducted – that is, as limited and carefully conducted as an undertaking aimed at blowing up things and people can ever be. You can’t bomb without producing a response, and you can’t expect Isis will observe rules that they don’t recognise.
Bluntly put: if we target them, they will target us. The foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, was right to say on Wednesday that we – Americans and British in particular – have always been in their sights as one of the “far enemies” they reckon with. But fighter bombers over the Mosul dam, arms for the Kurds and help for the Baghdad government bring us more into the “near enemy” category, and that has consequences. Consequences in the region and, potentially, consequences at home in the United States and Europe.
We should not be alone in a contest with Isis. Regional powers should take on a greater role, perhaps even military, but certainly a more coherent diplomatic role. There should be a suspension of the rivalries which helped create the opportunity Isis seized. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, even Syria, should be prominent at President Hollande’s conference. But the best way to contain a war which could grow even bigger is to move on as swiftly as possible from the purely military stage.
The only people who can really end the Isis threat, it is endlessly but rightly said, are the people of the regions they now control. At present they are either complicit with Isis, neutral or too scared to make a move. In Iraq, they may also believe that a still heavily Shia government and army in Baghdad is not an alternative they can embrace. The more time passes, the more some of their young men will be sucked into a poisonous apprenticeship with Isis and the more deluded adventurers from the west will arrive to join them.
We may believe Isis is too cruel, domineering and stupid to become a permanent feature of the Middle Eastern landscape. But it can be assisted into the disappearance which is probably its fate if, as well as military measures, there is a concerted international effort which concentrates on gaining the trust of Iraqi Sunnis, curbing sectarianism in Baghdad, re-opening the search for a settlement in Damascus and defusing the Sunni-Shia conflict which the regional powers have fuelled.
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