The Islamic State Is Nothing New

The beheading of yet another Western journalist, Steven Sotloff, has ignited another round of commentary suggesting that the Islamic State is the worst terrorist network ever. There is value in this: The current jihadist threat to the United States and the West is more dire than the threat that existed just prior to the 9/11 attacks, so anything that increases pressure for a sea change in our Islamic-supremacist-enabling government’s policies helps. Nevertheless, the perception that the Islamic State is something new and different and aberrational compared with the Islamic-supremacist threat we’ve been living with for three decades is wrong, perhaps dangerously so.

Decapitation is not a new jihadist terror method, and it is far from unique to the Islamic State. Indeed, I noted here over the weekend that it has recently been used by Islamic-supremacist elements of the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army against the Islamic State. It was only a few years ago that al-Qaeda beheaded Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg. Jihadists behead their victims (very much including other Muslims) all the time — as Tom Joscelyn notes at the indispensable Long War Journal, the al-Qaeda-tied Ansar al Jerusalem just beheaded four Egyptians suspected of spying for Israel.

Yet, the recent Islamic State beheadings, in addition to other cruelties, is fueling commentary portraying the Islamic State as more barbaric and threatening than al-Qaeda. This misses the point. The Islamic State is al-Qaeda. It is the evolution of the ruthless al-Qaeda division that grew up in Iraq under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In order to make the Islamic State seem different from al-Qaeda — i.e., to make it seem like something that has spontaneously appeared, rather than something Obama ignored and empowered — some reporting claims there are “ideological” and “doctrinal” differences between the two. This is true in only the most technical sense, a sense that is essentially irrelevant vis à vis the West.

What is going on among the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood (including Hamas), and other factions is a power struggle for leadership of the Sunni side of the global Islamic-supremacist movement. Because of the audience to which these actors play, some of their differences are framed as sharia-based. Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda leaders (who are allied against Assad in Syria and were allied with the Islamic State until fairly recently) contend, for example, that the Islamic State’s unilateral declaration of a caliphate transgresses Islamic principles that call for consultation and consensus among sharia-adherent Muslims. They argue that Islamic-supremacist groups should work cooperatively in the formation of local or regional emirates, with an eye toward eventually assembling the global caliphate.

From our perspective, so what? Both sides regard the West as the enemy to be conquered. Their differences are germane only to the extent that sharia fidelity, in addition to sheer brute force, will determine who comes out on top in their intramural warfare. As we have been observing here for years with respect to al-Qaeda and the Brotherhood, their disputes are mostly tactical; their splits on the finer points of Islamic-supremacist ideology bear only on how they regard each other. When it comes to the West, both see us as the enemy — and they put aside their differences to attack us.

The same has also always been true of the ideological/doctrinal divide between Sunni and Shiite jihadists. For example, al-Qaeda has had cooperative and operational relations with Iran since the early 1990s. Iran collaborated with al-Qaeda in the 1996 Khobar Towers attack that killed 19 U.S. airmen; probably in the 9/11 attacks; certainly in the aftermath of 9/11; and in the Iraq and Afghan insurgencies. Al-Qaeda would not be what it is today without state sponsorship, particularly from Iran. The Islamic State might not exist at all.

The point is that al-Qaeda has never been anything close to the totality of the jihadist threat. Nor, now, is the Islamic State. The challenge has always been Islamic supremacism: the ideology, the jihadists that are the point of the spear, and the state sponsors that enable jihadists to project power. The challenge cannot be met effectively by focusing on one element to the exclusion of others.

Have a look, for instance, at Bill Roggio’s report today (also in the Long War Journal): In helping Iraqi forces wrest Amerli from the Islamic State, the U.S. Air Force colluded with Iran-backed Shiite terrorist groups, including the League of the Righteous, responsible for the killing of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq. The switch in dominion over territory from anti-American Sunni jihadists to anti-American Shiite jihadists is a setback for the Islamic State, but it does not advance American national security. In fact, it would become a real negative for American national security if it contributed to a revival of the dangerous fantasy that Iran has a helpful, “stabilizing” role to play in rolling back the terrorist threat — a fantasy to which the Obama administration is far from unique in subscribing.

I opined at the start of this piece that the threat to the United States is more dire now than it was before 9/11. How could it be otherwise? What jihadists need to attack the United States is safe haven and state sponsorship, which enable them to plan and train; financial and weapons resources; and lax immigration enforcement. On every one of those scores, the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and other violent Islamic supremacists are in a better position than they were circa 1998–2001. The Islamic State, to take the most prominent example, controls a country-size swath of territory; has seized riches and advanced weaponry during its rampage; has enjoyed support from several countries; and targets an America in which border security is a joke, no effort is made to police visa overstays, and the federal government has actually discouraged and prevented state and federal agents from enforcing immigration laws.

The threat is worse, and worsening. But it is not confined to the Islamic State, and we cannot protect ourselves from it — cannot even grasp that it is a threat to us rather than simply to a faraway region — unless we understand the totality of it.

Yup, the Islamic state is nothing new. It's just (about) 1,400 years old:

Surat At Tawbah 123:

O you who have believed, fight those adjacent to you of the disbelievers and let them find in you harshness. And know that Allah is with the righteous.
Surat Al Maibah 33:

Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment,
Surat Al Anfal 12:

[Remember] when your Lord inspired to the angels, "I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip."

Nothing new at all.

Exactly. And for 1400 years, people have been discounting its inherently vicious and violent nature - until suddenly their own heads start to roll.

The Crusades only began after years of attacks by Muslims on Europeans and their capture of the Christian and Jewish holy places, and even then weren’t universally supported by the many warring European rulers and ran out of steam after the first few successes. As soon as Islam is knocked back a bit, people decide they’re safe and they can go back into their fantasyland again.

All fights against Islam over those 1400 years have been defensive in nature, when the levels of kidnappings, theft, rape and beheadings becomes too great for even the most sluggish Western country to ignore. Personally, I think it’s time to go on the offense.

He makes another good point about American support for one Islamic faction or another in hopes that they’ll wipe each other out. This has been a disaster for us, but it didn’t start with Obama or even with Bush. Our policy for 30 years or more has been to pick a faction that we regard as a minority counterbalance to the Islamic majority of an area (that is, Shiites vs Sunnis, for example) and think that they will fight each other to a standstill.

The only time that works is when you have a dictator, such as Assad or Saddam, who keeps an iron hand on the opposition Muslim groups and is ruthless in suppressing them. The only thing any Islamics understand is superior force.

But most of all, what the US and the West don’t understand is that as much as they hate each other, all of these Islamic factions hate us more. And when necessary, they are perfectly willing to work together against us.

“What jihadists need to attack the United States is safe haven and state sponsorship, which enable them to plan and train; financial and weapons resources; and lax immigration enforcement.”

I submit that they have every element described above right here in the United States.

I suspect the next terrorist attack against the US will come from jihadis allowed into the US through student visas/immigration/refugee programs and supported by the welfare state.

I suspect the attacks will occur primarily in places where gun controls are strict - such as DC or NYC - or schools.

So why do we persist with the BS that somehow ISIS in Iraq is important to defending the US - when we do nothing to protect our women and children in the US from these very same people?

I think it’s bureaucrats in places like DoD opining for more budget - “not letting a crisis go to waste” in their thirst for more and more taxpayer money.

I think our homeland “security” folks will let a domestic attack happen, because they can then opine for more budget and power to control people.

Citizens become mere sacrificial pawns to justify ever-increasing budgets for bloated government bureaucracies.

If I’m right, it will be a high-water mark for government incompetence.

The tragic possibility that citizens will be left to defend themselves from both government and from terrorists cannot be dismissed as ridiculous.

How is it with more spending than ever on “security” we are less secure than we ever have been against terrorism?

On that last, Leon Uris boiled it down with this line from The Haj:

“So before I was nine, I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world. And all of us against the infidel.”

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