Defeating ISIS Through This Coalition? Are You Serious?!

That would be a miracle!!  This coalition which is being cobbled together by the U.S. for that worthy cause is "a collection" of States.  As is customary during church services, a basket is passed around to collect from the faithful financial donations for the poor.  Some of the congregants drop money in the basket; others pass it down the pew while kneeling at worship.

Let us see what the Obama administration has garnered in its basket for the purpose of "degrading and defeating" ISIS -which British Prime Minister Cameron has aptly called "pure evil."  From Saudi Arabia, we got funding and training of carefully selected Syrian opposition elements.  Please underline the words "carefully selected," because nobody knows for certain the good guys from the bad guys.  ISIS itself, though born in Iraq (2003-2010) matured in the Syrian civil war as of 2011.

OK!!  Back to the Obama/Kerry/Hagel/basket of collected donations to defeat ISIS.  Oh yes, here is the Jordanian donation: intelligence!!  Good!!  No troops?  No!!  Now here is the United Arab Emirates -ready for bombing ISIS from the air!!  Hmm!!  But who will coordinate these aerial missions?  And don't we already have the U.S. doing this in Iraq, and now extending these assaults to Syria?

How about the Turkish donation?  None!!  Turkey has a long porous border with Syria, and has just been worried sick by ISIS holding captive around 50 Turkish consular officials trapped in Mosul.  Remember that Mosul was an integral part of the Ottan Empire until its defeat in World War I.  This resulted in Mosul's detachment from the Turks, making it a part of a new Iraq.  The Emperial British plan for the re-conquered Middle East included ruling the newly minted Iraq, not from Baghdad, but from New Delhi, India.

Turkey is now jubilant, as it should be, for its success in getting its citizens released from the murderous ISIS grip.  How?  They negotiated, and ISIS released.  From ISIS perspective, these were Muslims whose country refused to join the coalition, except for a promise (seemingly illusory) to tighten border controls over ISIS sympathizers crossing from Turkey into Syria, and thence, into Iraq.  But wait a minute!!  Negotiating with terrorists?  Yep!!

The rules for freeing hostages are non-written; and this was the largest consular detainee contingent since 1979 when the Iranians held 59 U.S. consular officials for 444 days.  The U.S., under Carter, tried force but failed (remember the special forces helicopters rescue operation which was obliterated by a desert storm).  Reagan came along, bargained through Colonel North an Iran-Contra arms deal, and the U.S. hostages were flown home.

Where the U.N. Convention on "Protected Persons" (meaning those covered by diplomatic or consular immunities) of the 1960's failed, dealing through quid pro quo with the devil succeeded.  There is a need for new international rules to regulate the unregulated: the age of the non-State actor!!  Don't you wish that poor Jim Foley, Sotloff (of the U.S.) or Haines (of the U.K.) had been given, through some flexibility, the chance to survive the butcher's knife?!  As they met that horrible end of life, they took also with them what they might have been useful as intelligence about ISIS.

Back to the collection basket!!  How about Egypt's contribution to the coalition?  Notice that all the nonsense about Egypt under El-Sisi becoming a military dictatorship -a fabrication by U.S. decision-makers, pundits, and neo-conservatives -has suddenly vanished.  Of course Cairo is still smarting from such interventionary attacks, including the withholding of $250 million in aid mandated by the Egypt/Israel Peace Treaty of 1979.  There are now some friendly U.S. noises about releasing those blocked funds as well as sanctioned military hardware.

Yet even with these palliative inducements, Egypt is emerging as a non-beast of burden, Mubarak era styles, for automatic support of continuously fluctuating American policies.  Some of the U.S. friendly approaches to the now banned Muslim Brotherhood have left a bad taste in Egypt's mouth.  Through the rise of ISIS, they have also been proven to be foolish.  You don't force on historically-secular Egypt a stupid Brotherhoodization agenda for the sake of conforming to American expectations of an Egyptian opposition at all costs.

Aside from these considerations about Egypt and the anti-ISIS coalition, Cairo has its own absorbing campaign inside Sinai.  It is a relentless struggle against other terror franchises, like "The Friends of Jerusalem" (Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis).  Thus Egypt is a front in the anti-ISIS campaign, a front covering the sands at Sinai, not the sands of Anbar, Iraq.

However, Egypt has in its arsenal against terrorism what others cannot match.  It is a veritable arsenal that goes by the name of "Al-Azhar," the citadel of proper Islamic learning, both Sunni and Shii, since 975 AD.

Al-Azhar is a unique combination of mosque, university, market-place of ideas, pan-Islamic, and the first "Tahrir Square" in Egypt, rallying national forces against Napoleon in Egypt (1798-1803), and the British (1882-1954).  Al-Azhar even survived the amateurish attempts during the Islamic reign of the Muslim Brotherhood (2012-2013) to co-opt it.

But under the secular Constitution of 2014, the remarkable achievement of the Revolution of June 30, 2013, Al-Azhar's independence was restored; the election of its Rector (the Grand Imam) reverted, not the State, but to its Council of Scholars; its amity with the Coptic church was assured.

Above all, Al-Azhar's Document of August 2011 put truly Islamic fingers in the eyes of jihadi Islam as it declared that "no recognition could be accorded to any State which is solely based on religion."  The Muslims are a community (UMMAH), not a State (Dawlah).  Sharia is supplemented by legislation.  With this type of booming and authentic voice from Egypt, makes the country akin to a Coalition's Department for Public Information."  The delegitimation of ISIS is the only credible contribution against that crazy caliphah Al-Baghdadi -a mere street thug from Al-Anbar, Iraq.

Other contributors to the coalition (the number stands now at 40 States) have their roles: Bombing by France; training by the British and Australians; Qatar by arms and funding anti-Assad forces ... etc.

International organizations, like the U.N., have become more factories of statements of denunciation or support -soap bubbles in the wind!!

In that mix, everyone is wondering about the real weapon that has a chance of an immediate effect on containing ISIS:  the foot soldier.  None from the U.S., except for non-combat advisers whose task is "tactical."  President Obama, reflecting national aversion to wars, has ruled it out.  In fact, American history has ruled this out too.  Since World War II, the mighty U.S. was involved in 5 wars: Korea; Vietnam; Iraq I (1991); Afghanistan; and Iraq II under Bush Junior.

With the exception of Korea, all the other wars were lost.  Why?  This is the age of asymmetric war, where the individual with an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) is an awesome combatant with neither a uniform, nor a copy of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the protection of civilians at times of war.

The coalition strategy calls for the training and equipping of Iraqi shii troops, Iraqi sunni tribes, kurdish troops, and trustworthy anti-Assad forces inside Syria.  The U.S. Congress has, at long last, approved US arming and training "safe" anti-Assad fighters.  Even Iran, an Assad supporter, is now tolerated by the U.S. to jump in the fray through Iraq, to combat ISIS.  Indeed, wars makes for strange bedfellows!!  The enemy of my enemy is a kind of friend.

The one billion riyal question is: Can This Coalition Win This Just War Against ISIS?  We should all wonder.  General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff described this phase as "extraordinarily complex."  And when it comes to clearing out Iraqi and Syrian cities in the Iraqi north and west, and in the Syrian east, Pentagon officials say: "There is no one in this building who does not know that clearing out the cities will be much harder."

On the eve of the Normandy invasion against Hitler in June 1944, Churchill is quoted as having wondered: "But will the troops fight?"  The same question should be asked of the Iraqi amalgam of foot soldiers, but in a different way: "Will the Shii troops turn their guns against the Sunni contingents, and vice-verse, after their U.S. training?" And: "Will the fractious Free Syrian Army, with its various ideological shades, go into combat against BOTH Assad and ISIS with the same goal in sight?"  And "Where will Russia and Iran and Hezbollah be if the noose is tightened against Assad, their Damascus Killer-in-Chief, causing another regime change in the Arab world?"

U.S. media have pointed out that "the more the President and his aides have talked, the more confusion they have sown."  The Pentagon has not yet given this U.S. mission a formal name.

Said a commentator whom I respect in his column in the New York Times, a few days ago: "For now, we seem to be settling out on an uncertain mission with unclear objectives on an unknown timetable using ambiguous methods with unreliable allies."  

The icing was on the cake as Assad expressed his desire to join the anti-ISIS coalition.  An Arab adage sums it all up: "Everyone is singing his own love song for his beloved Lailah!!

Hey, ISIS!! You Are Neither Islamic Nor a Caliphate!! But You Are a State -Only For the Insane!!

Now here is something which we attorneys live by: "Show me the evidence."  The second Caliph, Omar, in his instructions to the judges in the middle of the seventh century, laid it down.  He said: "The burden of proof is on the plaintiff."  In this posting, I consider myself a "plaintiff."  So here is my proof.

You, ISIS, call yourselves "Islamic."  But Islamic Law (Sharia), which I teach, denies you that status.  None of your "jihadi" forays accords with Sharia.  The list of my evidentiary items is long.  But I shall abridge it to avoid cumulative evidence:

(1) You declared that your raison d'etre is for the propagation of Islam.

• But Islamic Law does not extend jihad to the propagation of Islam.

(2) You claim that your mission is to rescue the West and other part of the non-Muslim world from ignorance (Jahiliah) of the present time.

• But in Islamic Law there is no proselytization.  Islam, through the principle of Tawheed (God is one), has equated between all faiths.  It left the final reckoning not to you, but to the Creator.  There is no middle man who decides who is faithful to God and who is not.  The Quran state: "If anyone invokes, beside Allah (God), any other god...his reckoning will be only with his Lord."  (Chapter 23 "The Believers;" verse 117).

(3) You hug your sword, or your knife, or your artillery, as a means of coercing others, Muslims and non-Muslims, into seeing life and the world through an ISIS distorted prism.  Thus, you assume that Islam has tasked you with being "an army of God."

• But Islam abhors any use of force except for self-defense.  Same with international law.  The Quran states: "Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful breaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious." (Chapter 16; verse 125).  Your most gracious way is head-cutting!!

(4) You claim that your jihad is akin to what Muhammad and his companions waged at the inception of Islam.

• But prior to Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina, Muhammad and his Companions confronted their tormentors with the jihad of wisdom, the friendly advice, patience, endurance and immigration.
• The first Muslim immigration was to a Christian country, Ethiopia which welcomed them with open arms.  It was later followed by the immigration (hijrah) of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina.  This is where the true Islamic State was founded.

(5) You confuse between the concept of "jihad" and the concept of combat "qital." 

• In Islam, jihad is an internal striving for self-improvement.  It becomes external only for self-defense.  Islam regards the defensive war as the only just war.  Muslims do not aggress; they only defend against external aggression.

(6) Your jihad is mayhem through an endless war which eliminates borders -a borderless State.

• But this is neither jihad, which is a legal concept, specifically circumscribed, and judicially sanctioned.  Nor is it Qital (combat) which is limited in scope as it arises from the exigencies of the State -the sovereign right to exist.  This leaves you only with a threatening black flag which declares: "God, and Muhammad, his Prophet."  You abide by neither.  

(7) You deny all others (Shias; Christians; Jews...etc.) the right to exist.  To you, the only humans who are entitled to live are the Sunnis.  Even those must be extremist Sunnis.

• But the Quran establishes an inclusive community of believers across the entire spectrum of humankind.  It speaks of "the people of the Book."  It glorifies Jesus as "the word of God," born through immaculate conception.  The Quran, which your practices have shredded, describes Moses as "God's Interlocutor" (Kaleemullah).  It treats all others as equal through the call "Allahu Akbar" -meaning we are all equal before God.

(8) You have enslaved women through captivity, lust, and dehumanization through an austere forms of dress and conduct.

• Contrary to sterotypes, Islam, through the Quran and the Sunna, has equated between male and female.  The Quran's verses in that regard are misread as to mean inequality in terms of inheritance, giving witness, and the like.  These have been amended or supplemented by legislated law (man-made; not God-made).  Thus today we have female judges even in Aden (Yemen), women pilots in Egypt, Presidents of States, and paratroopers in Jordan.

(9) For purposes of recruitment, you prey world-wide on the young who are disaffected, aimless, misunderstanding of Islam, or simply seeking either an identity or a job.  Now, out of your 30,000 troops, you have 8000 from east, west, north and south.  These are being raised by you as killers -all in the name of God.

• Islam establishes the principle of cooperation for good work. (the Quranic verse is "cooperate in doing what is good."  Islam abhors deceptive propaganda, epitomized by your savage videos, which advocates chaos (Fitna).  Chaos is a formless void of confusion.  In its allocation of degrees of danger to society, the Quran regards "Chaos" (fitna) as more destructive of society's fabric than murder.  Reason: murder affects one; fitna affects all.

(10) Your distorted advocacy of a concept of jihad without borders instills hostility amongst States.  Your so-called "islamic program, a projection of a Caliphate," aims at leading to raising the ISIS flag over all capitals.  This idiocy has generated a world-wide wave of islamophobia.

• Yet all the members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) -all 57 Member States are parties to a world-wide contract, called the U.N. Charter.  The Charter is a treaty.  The treaty is a contact.  "O ye who believe!  Fulfil all obligations" (The Quran; Chapter 5, verse I).  Emphasis on "friendly relations" between States, which you are bent on disturbing, is of such importance, that it is a part of written in the preamble of the U.N. Charter.

(11) You pick and choose from among the nearly 6400 verses of the Quran.  Thus you do what you are enjoined not to do by the primary source of Islamic Law.

• The Quran abhors saying by the mouth what one does not do, either by deed or at least by intention.  Thus it says: "Why do you say what you do not do?!!"  
• You lack the knowledge of Tafseer (interpretation of the intended words or speech).  You lack the qualification for issuing Fatwas (a non-enforceable religions advice anchored in deep knowledge of Islam).  You lack the support of Ijmaa (unanimity among Muslim scholars at a given time -a form of ijtihad). This is the application of the mind to the written verse.
• You lack basic knowledge of Islamic history.  Muslim ministries of defense in various countries from Istanbul to Cairo to Khartoum were called "The Jihadiya Ministry."  That was a proper usage of the term "jihad" -self-defense, proceeded by self-policing.
• In this context, you ISIS, are nowhere to be found, except as marauders, head-cutters, ransom-extortionists, natural resources snatchers, Islamophobia generators!!
• I am not finished yet, ISIS.  This is only Part I.  Part II shall be in a future blog.  -IS (Insane State): Stay tuned.  But keep your black masks on -another method of separating you from the rest of the human race!!

In Civil Wars, Seeking a UN Solution Is Like Seeking Dental Help From a Toothless Dentist

The U.N. General Assembly starts its 69th session in New York City later this month.  Let us peek under the blue canopy to separate the wheat from the shaff.  Mostly shaff.

The die was cast in San Francisco in June 1945.  The course, character, function, role and mission of the U.N. were all irrevocably decided forever.  The U.N. Charter gave birth to a World War II organization which was basically a clone of the League of Nations, except in few cosmetics.  An inter-State system which falsely described its existence in a contradictory fashion for public consumption -a feel good heading!!  The Charter begins with the words "We the people," but the "Nations" were only united in one respect: to prevent any surrender of substantive sovereignty.

The U.N. bestowed equality of sovereignty on its now 193 States.  Great!!  But in effect it saddled itself by two systems: equality in the General Assembly (the Parliament of Man/Woman); and a Security Council where the five "great powers" were respectively armed by an extinguisher of that equality -a veto power.  In effect, we have under the charter a house of commons (the General Assembly) and a house of 5 lords (the powers possessing a veto), plus 10 non-permanent States as extras.  This is the first split personality in the U.N.

If I say the "first split," I must produce "a second" without inventing it.  The second split is Article 2, para. 7 which, in part, states: "Nothing contained in the present charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within domestic jurisdiction of any State..."  So the State, at the U.N., is not only "sovereign;" it is also omnipotent because it can put a "domestic jurisdiction" label on any matter it could assert and defend as an internal matter.

In consequence, the hallowed "right of peoples to self-determination" is established only with regard to the inhabitants of an established State.  It does not exist in regard to groups seeking to secede from States, or to the right to reunification in divided States.  It is even more remote as to the exercise of minorities of their right to preserve their own separate identities, except what the State would authorize.  As a matter of fact, there is no consensus on defining the word "people."

This uncertainty seeps also under the foundation of "the right of peoples to self-determination."  Why?!  Because it conflicts with the better established principle of sovereignty.  This in part explains why States value their U.N. membership: it freezes the lines of their national boundaries at the time of joining the U.N. club.

But wait a minute!!  The U.N. Security Council, in spite of the existence of the veto, has been able to play some role in deterring aggression.  Yes, but only when the U.S., the U.K., France, China and Russia are together in accord, or when one or more of them decide to abstain or be absent.

This explains why Al-Assad has so far survived the hurricane of the Syrian civil war (the Russian veto either cast or threatened), and why Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu could flout international law as he grabs more Palestinian land (the U.S. veto is the real iron dome for the State of Israel).  Building settlement on occupied lands is anathema to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and is totally not covered by the right of Israel to defend itself.

Of course, the Security Council can impose sanctions, either military or economic.  But what the popular eye misses in this comforting scenario is that the Council does not possess what the charter had anticipated.  It says, in Article 42 that the Council may use "armed force" by "air, sea or land forces."  However, due to the cold war which followed on the heels of the victories of World War II, it is the State that can produce and can volunteer such armed forces.  The Council has none of its own.  In fact, the term "peace keeping" does not exist in the U.N. Charter.  The term is the product of a transitory chance:  The Suez War of 1956 which brought the U.S. and U.S.S.R together on the same page during the Eisenhower and the Khrushchev administration -a rare moment of common purpose.

In consequence, these national military contingents, which may be volunteered only by the will of the State, and also withdrawn by the will of the same State, have no ascertainable command and control at the U.N. Headquarters.  The U.N. Secretary General is not a commander-in-chief; he or she is only the bursar who funds these operations as per decisions of the Security Council and the General Assembly.

When we teach the laws of the U.N. Charter, we, as professors of law, tend to make a great deal of the presumed importance of the difference in powers between the Secretary-General of the League of Nations, and his successor at the U.N.

We point to Article 99 of the Charter which enables Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, for example, to "bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security."  The League's Secretary-General did not enjoy that capacity.  He was primarily a mere clerk.  But what can Mr. Ban do with this power in a Security Council whose decisions have to traverse the obstacle course of the non-exercise of the veto?  At most, a resolution which reflects the diminished will of a toothless U.N.

In practice, the power granted to the Secretary-General under Article 99 has largely manifested itself in two procedures: formation of "Friends of the Secretary-General" from 4 to 5 Security Council Members.  The other are statements by the Secretary-General of either support or condemnation of a global event -mere soap bubbles in the wind!!  Ceremonizing!!

Some would say: But the General Assembly could also adopt resolutions on war and peace!!  True.  But those resolutions are only a wish list, mere recommendations, implementable only by the will of the sovereign leviathan called, the Member State.

So far, I have painted a bleak picture.  I am right and wrong at the same time.  I am right when I state that the U.N., as an inter-state system, is unsuitable for effective action in civil wars.  Civil wars are domestic jurisdiction catastrophes, such as in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, the Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Somalia. . In such situations, any U.N. resolution is only carried out by the State.

Now let us look at where I am wrong in not delving in the exceptions.  The most important exceptions are: When human rights are so vastly violated to the point of shocking the conscience of mankind.  This is when States may intervene under the newly-minted doctrine of "international human intervention."  

Also when the Security Council and/or the Assembly might call on regional organizations, such as the European Union or the African Union or the League of Arab States to act on behalf of the U.N. under Chapter 8.  Also when the U.N. call goes out to capable individual members hidden within the vague term of "the international community" to come to the rescue.  Also when a U.N. resolution emboldens domestic opposition to rise up and throw off the yoke of the local dictator.  Also when a group of States get together, in their exercise of converging self-interest, to take collective action.  In all these situations, you see in the U.N. only a flag, but no direct executive action.

We also have on the bright side of the U.N. value, the vast developmental and humanitarian assistance carried out by what is called "the Family of the U.N. Organization" -30 specialized agencies (e.g. World health, civil aviation, refugees, food).

This is not to mention the 2000 non-governmental organizations which truly represent "We the People" in the U.N. Charter.  But their input, even when invited, is hardly translated into direct U.N. action.  In any case, such NGO input is safely channeled, not through the Security Council, but through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).  ECOSOC is hardly mentioned in media headlines.  This is although it carries out the greatest bulk of global action relative to enhancing the quality of life for billions of human beings in the so-called "developing countries."

In spite of all of these bright spots in the global performance of the U.N., I am looking through the window of civil wars and ISIS animal kingdoms!!  What I could see are pillars of dark smoke, with the fire department, called the U.N., with no engines to rush to these fires.

Could we repair these engines?  How?!  The Charter cannot be amended -except, except, except, by a new beginning to be called: "The World Under United Peoples!!"  Sweet dreams!!  Wake up, Pal!!  You are now in the world of the non-State actor.  Also known as "The Twilight Zone!!"