If that was the case, further uncomfortable conclusions would be unavoidable. Those who actioned and abetted the 2003 invasion would, in some sense, be rendered culpable for what just happened in Paris. Of course this is very different from suggesting that they desired this outcome. Children may enjoy playing with matches without any suggestion that they desire to burn their homes down. Nevertheless, that sometimes is the outcome, and we should note that their despairing parents will feel no compunction about yelling at them straight – ‘you burned the house down!’ They won’t feel the need to qualify this assertion, and factor-in the child’s actual desires when they played with the matches, after being implored, time and again, not to do so.
Similarly, if the Paris attacks were a consequence of the invasion of Iraq, surely doubt would be cast on the appropriateness of the current response. If the merciless attack on Iraq led to the merciless attack on Paris, should we not despair of leaders who pledge a ‘merciless’ counter-attack? Shouldn’t the cycle of mercilessness stop here, better late than never?
Indeed, if Iraq led us to Paris, wouldn’t it be time to stop taking advice from the politicians and journalists who led us into Iraq? Shouldn’t their opinions be mud by now? Shouldn’t we be listening to alternative thinkers? Wouldn’t all those Labour MPs currently standing shoulder to shoulder with a Conservative government be better advised to find themselves a leader of their own – perhaps a politician who has a track record of better judgement in such matters? Perhaps one who campaigned against the 2003 invasion, and isn’t scared to mention the names of those funding ISIS? Any suggestions?
Clearly, many well-placed people would have a lot to lose if such a connection was established. Various strategies are currently at play to prevent this from happening. The simplest is omission. History is presented as beginning with the Paris attacks: Civilisation was minding its own business when the barbarians breached the city walls and began the carnage. Of course this strategy won’t work with everyone, some people do insist upon remembering stuff. So the next best gambit is to deny any causal relationship – no mean feat given the succession of events:
2002 Iraq is a functioning country – deeply troubled – but functioning;
2005 Iraq is a pile of rubble and corpses;
2006 Islamic State in Iraq arises amid the carnage.
It’s hard not to see a chain of causality there. Here’s a popular but rather weak attempt to break the link:
You can’t say that ISIS is a product of the invasion of Iraq because they are just a bunch of savage lunatics.
The suggestion here seems to be that because the aims and objectives of ISIS cannot be seen as a cogent or meaningful response to the invasion then the invasion cannot be said to have led to ISIS’s creation. But then no one is suggesting that the specific nature of ISIS was forged by the invasion. Of course ISIS didn’t have to turn out exactly like ISIS. But considering what was done to Iraq it was all but certain that something hellish would be sucked-in. ISIS was certainly a more likely outcome in Iraq than a network of sewing circles, or for that matter, a stable, representative democracy.
This is the sense of ‘caused’ John Pilger alludes to, drawing parallels with Cambodia in the 1970s. I hope the following ‘only connect’ doesn’t oversimplify his argument:
To put it another way, if you turn an earthly landscape into a Hieronymus Bosch landscape you shouldn’t be too surprised when it becomes populated by axe-wielding skeletons. That is the sense in which, some would argue, Iraq led to ISIS, and so led to Paris.
Importantly, we should note that this sense of ‘caused’ also stands up to a key counterfactual. What if there had been no 2003 invasion? Let’s say it was shelved due to lack of international support, and the persistently-unfortunate citizens of Iraq still suffered under Saddam. Obviously the world would be a very different place. Indeed, knowing the fickleness of western power, by now Saddam might well have been rehabilitated, and joining hands with the US in the destruction of, say, Iran (stranger things have happened – Gadhafi, Mao, Stalin.) For all that uncertainty, one outcome seems vanishingly unlikely – the rise of Islamic State within Saddam’s Iraq. That is surely a crucial sense in which the invasion can be said to have led to the creation of ISIS.
In the face of all this you can understand why some commentators find it easier to throw in the towel, and admit the causal connection. Not that this heralds any change in strategy, of course. The answer to bombs must always be more bombs. Denial of a connection only changes to, ‘so what if there is a connection? Who cares how we got here? – ISIS are an existential threat and we must do something!’
Along with the owl-eyed ‘Well what would you do?!?!’ ‘do something’ is of course code for ‘kill people’. Blood for blood, regardless how many innocents are killed in the process, regardless of whether it further enflames the situation, regardless of whether it increases the likelihood of reprisals in our own cities. And when, in league with Assad, we’ve finished with ISIS, we can then move back onto…..Assad. And when we’ve finished with Assad, we can deal with whatever demonic acronym has been sucked into the vacuum left by him.
This is why it is so important to deny any connection between Paris and Iraq, or failing that, deny the relevance of that connection. Because if we did consider the record we would be forced to contemplate the unthinkable. We would be forced to doubt our previous conduct and consider change.
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