IS danger 'ignored at our own peril'

Robert Patman.
Robert Patman.
The rise of Islamic State is a ''danger to all states, including New Zealand'', and we should push for more action by the United Nations Security Council.

That is the view of Prof Robert Patman, an international relations specialist who heads the University of Otago department of politics.

And New Zealand, as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, should also push for a council resolution ''authorising the possible use of force'' against IS, he said.

The wide reach of Islamic extremism was also apparently shown in the shooting of a police civilian worker in west Sydney, late last week by a 15-year-old youth the police termed ''radicalised''.

Prof Patman said IS had recently enjoyed success in recruiting foreign fighters to join its forces in the Middle East, and also had sought, via the internet, to inspire individuals to undertake terrorist attacks in their own countries.

The ''barbarism'' of IS, including beheadings and abusive treatment of women, could ''only be ignored at our own peril'', he warned.

Prof Patman discussed attempts to defeat IS in an article published in the university's latest Otago Magazine, and also commented in an interview. IS was clearly ''more than just an al Qaeda-style threat'', and combined ''jihadism and territorial expansion''.

The coalition of more than 60 countries opposing IS had failed to ''summon the political will or strategic understanding'' to defeat it.

Over the past year, IS had extended its control over one-third of Iraq and a roughly equivalent proportion of Syria, and now governed six million people.

It was ''high time'' UN Security Council created a resolution authorising the possible use of force against IS.

And it was ''strategically vital'' that any military action against IS had the ''widest possible international backing''.

New Zealand should also encourage the council to restart international efforts to bring an end to the civil war in Syria and promote a political transition there.

And New Zealand ''must follow through on its pledge'' to press the Security Council to revive negotiations for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict'', he said.

A ''continuing failure'' to address this issue had enabled IS to exploit a related sense of ''anger and grievance'' in the Muslim world over the matter, he said.

IS was ''not invincible'' but it would take more than military force to defeat it, and the ''political causes'' of its growth should also be addressed, he said.

john.gibb@odt.co.nz

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