In May, I visited Vietnam and met with university students. After a week of being love-bombed by Vietnamese, who told me how much they admire the US, want to work or study there and have friends and family living there, I could not help but ask myself: “How did we get this country so wrong? How did we end up in a war with Vietnam that cost so many lives and drove them into the arms of their most hated enemy, China?”
It is a long, complicated story, I know, but a big part of it was failing to understand that the core political drama of Vietnam was an indigenous nationalist struggle against colonial rule — not the embrace of global communism, but the interpretation we imposed on it.
The North Vietnamese were both communists and nationalists — and still are. However, the key reason the US failed in Vietnam was that the communists managed to harness the Vietnamese nationalist narrative much more effectively than the US’ South Vietnamese allies, who were too often seen as corrupt or illegitimate. The North Vietnamese managed to win (with the help of brutal coercion) more Vietnamese support not because most Vietnamese bought into Marx and Lenin, but because former Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and his communist comrades were perceived to be the more authentic nationalists.
I believe something loosely akin to this is afoot in Iraq. The Islamic State (IS), with its small core of jihadis, was able to seize so much non-jihadi Sunni territory in Syria and Iraq almost overnight not because most Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis suddenly bought into the Islamist narrative of the militants’ self-appointed caliph. Most Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis do not want to marry their daughters off to a bearded Chechen fanatic, and more than a few of them pray five times a day and like to wash it down with a good Scotch.
They have embraced or resigned themselves to the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, because they were systematically abused by the pro-Shiite, pro-Iranian governments of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki — and because they see IS as a vehicle to revive Sunni nationalism and end Shiite oppression.
The challenge the US faces in Iraq is trying to defeat the group in tacit alliance with Syria and Iran, whose local Shiite allies are doing a lot of the fighting in Iraq and Syria. Iran is seen by many Syrian and Iraqi Sunnis as the “colonial power” dominating Iraq to keep it weak.
Obsessed with communism, the US intervened in Vietnam’s civil war and took the place of the French colonialists. Obsessed with jihadism and terrorism, are we now doing the bidding of Iran and Syria in Iraq? Is jihadism to Sunni nationalism what communism was to Vietnamese nationalism: a fearsome ideological movement that triggers emotional reactions in the West — deliberately reinforced with videotaped beheadings — but that masks a deeper underlying nationalist movement that is to some degree legitimate and popular in its context?
I wonder what would have happened had Islamic State not engaged in barbarism and declared: “We represent the interests of Syrian and Iraqi Sunnis who have been brutalized by Persian-directed regimes of Damascus and Baghdad. If you think we’re murderous, then just Google ‘Bashar al-Assad and barrel bombs’ or ‘Iraqi Shiite militias and the use of power drills to kill Sunnis.’ You’ll see what we faced after you Americans left. Our goal is to secure the interests of Sunnis in Iraq and Syria. We want an autonomous ‘Sunnistan’ in Iraq just like the Kurds have a Kurdistan — with our own cut of Iraq’s oil wealth.”
That probably would have garnered huge support from Sunnis everywhere.
Islamic States’ online magazine, Dabiq, recently published an article titled “Reflections on the Final Crusade,” (transcribed by the Middle East Media Research Institute), which argued that the US war on the jihadist outfit only serves the interests of Washington’s enemies: Iran and Russia.
It quotes US strategists as warning that Iran has created a “Shia [Shiite]-belt from Tehran through Baghdad to Beirut,” a threat much greater than IS.
Then why did Islamic State behead two US journalists? Because it is a coalition of foreign jihadis, local Sunni tribes and former Iraqi Baath Party military officers. I suspect the jihadis in charge want to draw the US into another “crusade” against Muslims — just like with former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden — from across the world and to overcome their main weakness, namely that most Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis are attracted to Islamic State simply as a vehicle of their sectarian resurgence, not because they want puritanical-jihadist Islam. There is no better way to get secular Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis to fuse with Islamic State than have the US bomb them all.
IS needs to be contained before it destabilizes islands of decency like Jordan, Kurdistan and Lebanon, but destroying it? That will be hard, because it is not just riding on some jihadist caliphate fantasy, but also on deep Sunni nationalist grievances. Separating the two is the best way to defeat IS, but the only way to separate mainstream Sunnis from jihadists is for mainstream Sunnis and Shiites to share power, to build a healthy interdependency from what is now an unhealthy one.
Chances of that? Very low. I hope US President Barack Obama has thought this through.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.