Twin
terror attacks in Berlin and Ankara remind West of true enemy, radical Islam, by Robert Romano, 12/21/16
While the Electoral College in the
U.S. was officially making Donald Trump the President-elect on Dec. 19, twin terror
attacks in Berlin and Ankara offered the West a fresh reminder of the true
enemy it faces from radical Islam.
It does not matter if you live in a
country like Germany, which has taken in 1 million refugees from the war in
Syria and opposes the Assad regime there. Or in Russia, which backs the Assad
regime in Syria and whose
ambassador, Andrei Karlov, was assassinated on camera while delivering a speech at an art gallery in Ankara.
The enemy is making no distinction.
Whether you support or oppose the
Assad regime in Syria, they’re coming to get you. Whether you take in the
refugees or not, although your society might be safer if you didn’t, they’re
coming to get you. The enemy does not care.
The truck that plowed into a
Christmas marketplace in Berlin may have been driven by a refugee, a
Tunisian man named Anis Amri is now being sought after asylum office papers
belonging to him were found in the cab, but
more importantly, it was an Islamist attack. Islamic
State has claimed responsibility for the carnage in Berlin, which matched the tactic used by the truck attacker at
Nice, France in 2015. The message is clear. Radical Islam remains at war with
the West. Its adherents simply want us dead.
And now it will be up to Trump, upon
assuming office on Jan. 20, 2017, to prosecute the West’s war against radical
Islam. But Trump will be entering the
world’s stage in an increasingly dangerous environment, where events have
played out largely with U.S. acquiescence under the leadership of outgoing
President Barack Obama as the situation in the Middle East has deteriorated.
The U.S. backed the overthrow of the
governments of Libya and Egypt in 2011, and then opposed it when Egypt was
reclaimed from Muslim Brotherhood by the military in 2013.
In 2011, the Syrian civil war began,
with the U.S. backing rebel factions there against the Assad regime, a Russian
ally. The U.S. finished its withdrawal of
military forces from Iraq at the end of 2011, completing Obama’s 2008 campaign
promise to leave that country.
By 2013, the Obama administration
was seeking Congressional authorization for direct military confrontation there
to overthrow Assad, and even
considered options to go there without a vote of Congress.
As the civil war in Syria played
out, the power vacuum the U.S. left created the opportunity for Islamic State
to fill as it rose to power in 2014 after capturing several cities in Syria and
Iraq.
The war displaced millions of
refugees, who fled the region for Europe and elsewhere, setting the stage for
Islamic State attacks in Paris, Nice, multiple attacks in the U.S. and now
Berlin.
Since then, U.S. special forces have
reentered the theater in Iraq along with a campaign of air strikes beginning in
2014. That was possible because although Obama had withdrawn U.S. forces, the
2002 authorization to use force in Iraq, which overthrew the government of
Saddam Hussein, was never repealed.
In 2015, the U.S. signed the nuclear
deal with Iran that critics charge creates the path for Tehran to get nuclear
weapons. Russian forces too have since
intervened in Syria since 2015, culminating in the latest offensive by Syrian
forces to defeat the rebels at Aleppo, a rebel stronghold, this month. Trump indicated on the campaign
trail that he would focus U.S. efforts on defeating Islamic State and has
hinted at the possibility of cooperation with Russia in that endeavor to defeat
a common enemy.
In that case, the assassination of
Karlov in Turkey, a NATO ally, and the Islamic State attack in Germany, another
NATO ally, could provide a basis for Trump to thread that needle, but it will
not be easy.
Countries like France and Germany
have played both sides of the conflict in Syria, working to overthrow the
Russian-backed Assad regime while simultaneously opposing Islamic State, fueled
by the illusion that the armed opposition to Assad was anybody but radical
Islamists. That convoluted policy has destabilized the country and led directly
to the refugee crisis.
It will now be up to Trump to bring
clarity to the conflict by focusing on the real enemy, Islamic State. By now,
it should be clear that Russia will not permit the overthrow of the Assad
regime. If the U.S. had intervened there, it could very well have brought the
U.S. to war with Russia. That would not only be destabilizing, but
catastrophic.
The path of least resistance, then,
is defeating Islamic State, and working to simultaneously deescalate tensions
between the U.S. and Russia.
That will likely require assurances
that the U.S. will not act to overthrow the Assad regime, which should be easy,
since the war there is already over and the U.S. has already passed up the
opportunity to intervene.
The gunman in Ankara, who shouted
“Remember Aleppo!” as he shot Karlov, certainly did not think that the war in
Syria is over. He also pledged allegiance to the rebels there, reportedly
saying, “We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Muhammad for
jihad.” That
is said to be similar to the anthem of al Nusra, an al Qaeda affiliate, another
Islamist faction in the Syrian civil war,
and the
group has claimed responsibility via an Internet letter.
Defeating those factions, then,
Islamic State and al Nusra, will have to be the administration’s top foreign
policy priority. There, the U.S. and Russia share common interests, and
cooperation should be embraced, despite allegations by the outgoing Obama
administration of supposed Russian intervention in U.S. elections. Defeating
radical Islam is more important than hearing out grievances from John Podesta
and the now-defeated Hillary Clinton for President campaign.
At the same time, and in exchange
for providing Assad assurances, Trump could then work with European allies to
settle the refugee crisis in Germany, Italy and France by resettling refugees
into a more permanent setting. Trump’s call for halting immigration from terror
havens comes into view, as well, but if the war in Syria winds down, then it
becomes possible that the refugees could begin to return home.
But even if they would not return
there willingly, the political circumstances in Europe may ultimately mean the
final settlement for refugees will have to be elsewhere in the world of Islam,
in North Africa or somewhere else. This will require more deft diplomacy by
Trump to work with U.S. allies in the region, but it could help deescalate
tensions in Europe as well while simultaneously denying sanctuaries for Islamic
State there. Europe cannot be the dumping ground for the Middle East’s wars. The
goal now must be restoring stability across the entire region.
European integration of the refugees
was a foolish, idealist pipe dream by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Sadly,
it lays in tatters on the streets of Berlin. Now it falls on Trump to clean up
the mess.
Robert
Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.
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