Differing agendas impede the anti-Islamic State struggle, Robert G. Patman writes.
The recent terror attacks in Brussels are a stark reminder that coercive efforts alone will not resolve the political challenge presented by the Islamic State. The death count from last week's bombing attacks in Brussels is more than 30, and nearly 270 were injured.
Such atrocities are tragic and unacceptable, but they are part of a broader pattern of terrorist attacks during the past 15 months by IS or its affiliates in places such as Paris, Ankara, Garissa, Sinai and Baga.
In the aftermath of such attacks, commentators and politicians typically use tough language, demand improved law enforcement and intelligence capabilities, focus on efforts to capture or kill terrorists, and reiterate the need for vigilance against violent militants dedicated to destroying democracy.
To be sure, those responsible for criminal acts like the Brussels blasts must be held accountable and no effort should be spared in doing so.
But much more should be done to politically discredit IS. The carnage in Brussels highlights a continuing international failure to formulate a coherent response to the political conditions in the Middle East that helped fuel the rise of IS.
Of course, most states in the world agree in principle that IS must be defeated. In September 2014, the US formed a global coalition to ‘‘degrade and ultimately destroy'' IS.
In military and financial terms, considerable progress since then has been made in achieving this goal. Prominent IS leaders have been killed and the organisation's domain in Iraq and Syria has shrunk, amid reports the terrorist group is struggling to pay its fighters.
Since January 2015, IS has lost an estimated 22% of the territory under its control, and about 8% of those losses have occurred in 2016. But IS continues to attract substantial numbers of foreign fighters into its ranks, maintains an active presence on social media, and has increased its ability to motivate and co-ordinate terror attacks on a global scale.
The ‘‘caliphate'' has demonstrated resilience, and its political appeal in the turbulent context of the Middle East is multifaceted.
First, IS is a Sunni supremacist group that was created in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, to counter what was as seen as the externally engineered rise of the Shia faith in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Second, and not unrelated, IS became prominent during the Syrian civil war after 2011, when it established itself as one of the most formidable armed opposition groups to the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad's Alawite regime in Damascus. The Alawites are a sect with links to Shia Islam.
Third, IS rejects the current state boundaries of the Middle East and presents itself as the champion of the disaffected and alienated members of Sunni Islam faith who see themselves as victims of the status quo in the region.
However, divisions with the anti-IS coalition have impeded efforts to delegitimise what is a barbaric and criminal organisation.
At present, there is something of a mismatch between the heavy international emphasis on military efforts to crush IS and what is needed to politically undermine this terrorist group.
Key countries, including Turkey, Russia and the US, continue to put their own national political interests ahead of collective efforts to deal with the IS terror threat.
During the last year, for example, President Recep Erdogan's Government in Turkey has launched waves of air strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria, who have been effectively battling IS militants.
Ankara fears that military success by the Kurds in Syria will intensify efforts for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey, and President Erdogan has made it clear that the battle against Kurdish nationalism takes priority over confronting IS.
In addition, Vladimir Putin's regime, despite an avowed opposition to terrorism, has continued to prop up the Assad dictatorship and therefore contributed to the conditions in Syria that have facilitated the rise of IS, which now has more than 3000 Russians within its ranks.
By blocking US-UN efforts to devise a political settlement in the Syrian civil war and launching a six-month military intervention in September 2015 to protect Russia's ally in Damascus, the Putin regime has maintained a foothold in Syria but it has done so at a terrible cost of inflating the IS presence in the country and the region.
Moreover, US policy in the Middle East often seems to be shaped more by domestic political concerns than the imperative of winning the ideological battle against Islamic terrorism.
The Obama administration initially wanted to reinvigorate efforts to establish a Palestinian state, but effectively backed off when Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, effectively rallied opposition in Washington to the idea.
So the US finds itself in the position where it opposes Israel's settlements in the Palestinian West Bank but seems unable or unwilling to do anything in practice about this trend.
Unfortunately, extremist groups such as IS are happy to exploit the sense of hatred and anger generated in the Muslim world by apparent American indifference to the stateless plight of the Palestinians.
While major players opposing IS cannot fix all Middle East problems, they can and should, where possible, address issues that otherwise boost IS's political standing in the region and in the world.
●Robert G. Patman is Professor of International Relations at the University of Otago.
