Mustafa Aljaradi
Few hours after a video was released of the execution of James Foley, the American journalist who was kidnapped by ISIL in Syria, Barac Obama, the American president halted his vacation and rushed back due to this calamity. The criminal act of slaughtering Foley was documented in a video that included many messages and signals the murderers wanted to show including the uniform Foley was wearing and the words he said to his family and his government. Until he surrendered his head with contentment and peace to the murderer whom was confirmed to be British citizen, mostly thought to be from London, by all the intelligence investigations and press reports.
Thomas Friedman, the prominent journalist who interviewed Obama in the library of the white house for the new York Times magazines pointed out how worried and heavy hearted Obama was:” President Obama’s hair is definitely grayer these days, and no doubt trying to manage foreign policy in a world of increasing disorder accounts for at least half of those gray hairs”.
After ISIL could take control of vast areas in Iraq and then moved towards Kurdistan migrating the Christian community of Mosul and posing a siege over the Yazidi followers in mount Sinjar, the whole world woke up after deep slumber and decided to form an alliance to defeat the growing threat of terrorism to their vital interests. The primary features of this alliance were mentioned by Obama in his interview with Friedman when he said:” “When you have a unique circumstance in which genocide is threatened, and a country is willing to have us in there, you have a strong international consensus that these people need to be protected and we have a capacity to do so, then we have an obligation to do so”. This outlines that Obama’s conception of international alliance should be based upon saving lives and protecting populations from mass extermination besides the availability of potential capacity. What he overlooked is to specify who are the actual partners who will defeat terrorism and stop ISIL from establishing a Caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
Obama’s insistence on never arming the Syrian secular revolutionists who are ”doctors, pharmacists and former farmers” was proven to be a very true argument to him later, because they would never be able to fight against such strong army supported by Iran and the veteran fighters of Hezbollah. He referred later that it is very difficult to arm and train those secular protesters.
Speaking again about the international entente against terrorism, François Holland, the French president said in an interview with Le Monde that he will propose an initiative in September to Security Council to fight against ISIL in Iraq saying that this is the worst security situation ever. ” We have to put a comprehensive strategy against this group, which has become a regulated entity with huge funding sources and very sophisticated weapons forming enormous threat to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon” he asserted. Saudi Arabia has followed his steps holding the conference ”friend of Syria” on its land to discuss the developing situation and the rise of extremist groups, particularly ISIL!
It is worth mentioning that that Saudi Arabia has provided a grant of 100 million dollars for the fight against terrorism in addition to a gift for the Lebanese army worth a billion dollars for the same reason.
The justifications and components of this alliance have been completed now. Everyone agreed to defeat terrorism and resist its expanding horror. All the countries in the region from Iran to Turkey are looking for an important role in this pact, even the Syrian regime which decided to ride the wave and leverage the west in its war against terrorism. Years passed while the Syrian population is exposed to various forms of genocide and getting killed by conventional weapon, long-range missiles and even chemical weapons; the world was as calm as a corpse watching all of that. The world did not move to help this population who were left alone to face atrocious state terrorism backed by Russia and Iran. To make it even worse, ISIL stormed the country beheading its sons and scattering its finest youth by detaining, kidnapping or stalking. This group has beheaded 700 men of one tribe ‘Shi’etat’ in Deir Azzor in one day; on the other hand, beheading Foley stirred the consciousness of the whole world and forced it to unite for holding ISIL down.
I tend to call this alliance, the new International pact against terrorism as ”Alfudool pact” out of cynicism and irony of the bitter situation that we- sons of Syria- are living. Fudool Pact, according to historical records is an alliance that was made by Quraish tribe during the pre-Islamic age. That alliance was held at the house of Abdulla Bin Jada’an Altamimy Alqurashy, one of the leaders of Quraish. The alliance included many of the sub divisions of Quraish tribe in Mecca in 509 AD, only a month after a war started between two tribes; Kenana and Qais Aylan. Prophet Muhammad witnessed that alliance when he was 20 years old and said about later:” I witnessed with my cousins an alliance in Abdulla Bin Jadaan’s house that I would not replace with the finest red camels, and if I was invited to it during Islam I would be happy to respond”.
Hence, international alliance should uphold the oppressed wherever they are and whatever their religion and ethnicity is. Today the world is sharpening determination and summoning strength to fight terrorism, it is uniting power forming alliances and leagues to withstand the growing danger. However, to wait until terrorism that grew in Iraq and Syria, known to all the great powers under the eyes of its intelligence and the active actors in the region, threatens vital interests of western countries and the integrity of the countries in the region to make the world unite and agree to act is worth pondering. Whoever wants to eliminate terrorism should include the Syrian government on the top of the list because it is the one who allowed terrorism to operate in Syria and turned a blind eye to it in order to use it as a tool to kill the opponents and as lame excuse to using the military action against civilians under the name of fighting terrorism to hide the clear truth that it is fighting against the population which demanded freedom and dignity.
