{"id":8505,"date":"2019-10-28T05:41:27","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T12:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=8505"},"modified":"2019-10-28T05:43:50","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T12:43:50","slug":"al-baghdadi-is-dead-the-story-doesnt-end-here-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=8505","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Al-Baghdadi Is Dead. The Story Doesn\u2019t End Here&#8221;, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <span class=\"css-1baulvz last-byline\">Thomas L. Friedman, Opinion Columnist, Oct. 28, 2019<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"css-qsaw8 e1wtpvyy0\">\n<p class=\"css-ri4qrz e1wtpvyy1\">Opinion Columnist<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>President Trump boasts of defeating the Islamic State. He\u2019s only showing how ignorant he is.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">The killing of the founder and leader of the Islamic State by United States commandos operating in Syria should certainly further weaken the most vile and deadly Islamist movement to emerge in the Middle East in the modern era.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">The world is certainly a better place with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dead and a measure of justice meted out on behalf of all the women ISIS raped, all the journalists ISIS beheaded and the tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis it abused. Good for President Trump for ordering it, for the intelligence agents who set it up, for the allies who aided in it and for the Special Forces who executed it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">But this story is far from over, and it could have many unexpected implications. Let\u2019s start at home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">President Trump was effusive in his praise for the U.S. intelligence agencies who found and tracked al-Baghdadi to the lair in Syria where he blew himself up to avoid being captured. In his news conference, Trump went on and on about just how good the men and women in our intelligence agencies are.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">Well, Mr. President, those are the same intelligence agencies who told you that Russia intervened in our last election in an effort to tip the vote to you and against Hillary Clinton (and are still intervening). When our intel agencies exposed that reality, you impugned their integrity and quality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\">\n<div class=\"css-ke163a\" data-testid=\"article-companion-wrapper\">\n<div id=\"newsletter-module\" class=\"css-48vsi0\">\n<div class=\"css-1k9ek97\">\n<div class=\"css-tjpxhb\">\n<div class=\"css-sefkcv\">\n<div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">And the same intelligence agencies who tracked down al-Baghdadi are the same ones who produced two whistle-blowers high up in your White House \u2014 who complained that you, Mr. Trump, abused the power of your office to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, touching off this impeachment inquiry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">And those same intelligence agencies whom you hailed as heroes for tracking down al-Baghdadi, Mr. Trump, are the same \u201cdeep state,\u201d the same agencies and whistle-blowers whom your White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, just smeared as \u201cradical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">So thank you, Mr. Trump, for clearing up this confusion. We now know that the same intelligence services who have been heroic in protecting us from those who want to attack our constitutional democracy from abroad are the same heroes who have stepped up to protect our constitutional democracy from within. Unlike you, Mr. Trump, they took seriously their oath to do both.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">As for the future of the Middle East, let\u2019s not forget that ISIS was the Sunni Muslim jihadist organization that emerged after President Barack Obama\u2019s administration eliminated the previous holder of the worst-person-in-the-world title, Osama bin Laden. But al-Baghdadi\u2019s death \u2014 a very good thing in and of itself \u2014 is not the end of our troubles in and from the Middle East.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-2-wrapper\" class=\"css-2ninbb\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">Trump\u2019s effort to play down the significance of President Obama\u2019s killing of bin Laden \u2014 while playing up his killing of al-Baghdadi as the key to creating the peace to end all peace \u2014 only shows how ignorant he is about the region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">ISIS emerged in 2014 as the product of three loose factions or movements, as I pointed out in <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/02\/25\/opinion\/thomas-friedman-isis-heads-to-rome.html?module=inline\">a column back in 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">One faction comprised the foreign volunteers. Some were hardened jihadists, but many were losers, misfits, adventure seekers and young men <em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">who had never held power, a job or a girl\u2019s hand<\/em> and they joined ISIS to get all three. ISIS offered a paycheck, power and sexual release to men and women coming from closed societies or cultures where none of that was available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">ISIS\u2019s second faction \u2014 its brains and military backbone \u2014 was composed of former Sunni Baathist army officers and local Iraqi Sunnis and tribes, who gave ISIS passive support. Iraqi Sunnis constitute about a third of Iraq\u2019s population. They had ruled Iraq for generations, and many Sunnis in the Iraqi military were enraged, humiliated and frustrated by how the U.S. invasion of Iraq had overturned that order and put the Iraqi Shiite majority in charge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">ISIS also derived a lot of passive support from just average Iraqi Sunnis after Iran and pro-Iranian Shiites in power in Baghdad, led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki \u2014 whom the Bush administration tragically installed \u2014 used their power to further abuse Iraqi Sunnis and keep them from jobs and out of the military.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">For many Iraqi Sunni villagers under ISIS control, ISIS was just less bad than the brutality and discrimination they experienced under Iraq\u2019s pro-Iranian Shiite-led government back then. Google \u201cIraqi Shiite militias and power drills\u201d and you\u2019ll see that ISIS didn\u2019t invent torture in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">Fortunately, we and the Iraqis finally figured that out, and Iraq has a much better government today. But the U.S. keeps repeating the same mistake in the Middle East: overestimating the power of religious ideology and underappreciating the impact of bad governance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">As Sarah Chayes, who long worked in Afghanistan and has written an important book \u2014 \u201c<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/02\/22\/books\/review\/thieves-of-state-by-sarah-chayes.html?module=inline\">Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security<\/a>\u201d \u2014 puts it: \u201cNothing feeds extremism more than the in-your-face corruption and injustice\u201d that some of America\u2019s closest Middle East allies administer daily to their people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">The third ISIS faction was composed of the true religious ideologues, led by al-Baghdadi. They have their own apocalyptic version of Islam. But it would not have resonated so far and wide were it not for the first two factors listed above.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">And that leads us back to Trump and his foreign policy. Trump has never met a dictator he did not like. He is blind to the fact that the next al-Baghdadi is being incubated today in some prison in Egypt, where President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, whom Trump once actually called \u201cmy favorite dictator,\u2019\u2019 is not only rounding up violent Jihadists but liberal nonviolent journalists, activists and politicians. Their only crime is that they want to have a say in their country\u2019s future and help to create an environment where they can realize their full potential \u2014 so they will not have to look for dignity, power, a job or a girl\u2019s hand from extremist groups like ISIS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">When Trump praises Baghdadi as his favorite victim and el-Sisi as his favorite dictator, all he is doing is walking in place. We\u2019re actually getting nowhere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">And that brings me back to Syria. Syrian Sunnis supported ISIS for the same reason Iraqi Sunnis did. Iran, the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia, the Shiite-Alawite Syrian regime of Bashar Assad and Russia have all collaborated to create a pro-Iranian Shiite minority government in Damascus. Of course they gave Trump a free pass to kill Baghdadi! His death just makes it that much easier for them to rule Syria without sharing power with the Sunnis. As long as that\u2019s the case, there will be no stability there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">Finally, Trump kept going on and on in his news conference about how he, in his infinite wisdom, was keeping U.S. troops in Syria to protect the oil fields there so maybe U.S. oil companies could exploit them. He even boasted that while he was against the Iraq war, we should have taken over all of Iraq\u2019s oil fields to pay for it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">This is disgusting talk, and again, a prescription for trouble in the future. If America has any role in the Middle East today, it is not to protect the oil wells, but to protect and enhance what I call the \u201cislands of decency.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-4-wrapper\" class=\"css-2ninbb\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">These are places like Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan, Jordan, the U.A.E., Oman, Lebanon and the frail democracies in Tunisia and Baghdad. None of these are developed democracies; Oman, Jordan and the U.A.E. are monarchies. But perfect is not on the menu in the Middle East right now. And these countries do promote more moderate versions of Islam and religious tolerance, they do empower their women and they do encourage modern education.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">These are the necessary but not sufficient antidotes to ISIS. They are worth preserving and enhancing in hopes that they can develop one day into something better for all their peoples. Just look at the democracy protests in Lebanon. You can see where the young people want to go.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\">Only Trump would boast of defeating ISIS and thinking that all that needs to be done now is to protect the Middle East\u2019s oil wells and America\u2019s favorite dictators \u2014 and not its wells of decency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\"><em>Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Op-Ed columnist. He joined the paper in 1981, and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including \u201cFrom Beirut to Jerusalem,\u201d which won the National Book Award.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-exrw3m evys1bk0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/10\/27\/opinion\/trump-al-baghdadi-dead.html?action=click&amp;module=Opinion&amp;pgtype=Homepage\">The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"bottom-of-article\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Thomas L. Friedman, Opinion Columnist, Oct. 28, 2019 Opinion Columnist President Trump boasts of defeating the Islamic State. He\u2019s only showing how ignorant he is. The killing of the founder and leader of the Islamic State by United States commandos operating in Syria should certainly further weaken the most vile and deadly Islamist movement [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8505"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8507,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8505\/revisions\/8507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}