There are three key reasons why success for the West hasn’t followed. Together, these reasons point towards an urgent need to shift strategy to avoid a stalemate.
Home away from home for too many Syrians.
US State Department
Syrians are the single largest group of displaced people in the world. How to make sure that the plight of these refugees doesn’t fuel future conflicts?
If governments are to maintain public support for their military ventures, war narratives must be kept simple and consistent. The underlying message must not change: the West is always the innocent victim of terrorism, never its perpetrator.
By exploiting weaknesses and divisions, the extremist group has been able to establish a brutal regime in just 12 months.
What possesses a Queensland teenager like Oliver Bridgeman to go to fight in Syria? Online propaganda is not an adequate explanation on its own.
Facebook
Simplistic views of terrorist recruitment focus on online messages to Western youth. Foreign fighters are coming from many other countries, lured by many means, and we need more sophisticated responses.
Islamic State is not just in the Middle East – it exists in the West’s suburbs and computers.
EPA/Aamaq Media
Conflict involving Islamic State has raised the prospect of the destruction of Palmyra, a World Heritage site in Syria. It’s not the first time the region has been invaded, but it may well be the last.
The destruction of Iraq and Syria’s cultural heritage is more than wanton vandalism – it’s a grim political project.
A Syrian boy sits on the rubble of a demolished house. Many ordinary Syrians just want peace – though not necessarily if that means appeasing their nation’s ruthless leader.
AAP Image/ Care Australia/ Alain Lapierre
While many insist that the West should appease Syria’s Assad regime, this ignores the wishes of many ordinary Syrians – who are the key to defeating Islamic State and other extremists in Syria.
Kadiza Sultana, Amira Abase and Shamima Begum left the UK in mid-February.
Met Police
Record numbers of arrests of young Britons on suspicion of terrorism offences shows the need for a new and effective approach to online jihad.
President Barack Obama and his inner circle follow the assassination of Osama bin Laden, which made headlines worldwide but is seemingly unimportant four years on.
EPA/Pete Souza/White House handout
Memories of the killing of Osama bin Laden are fading, but the legacies of al-Qaeda and the war on terror’s many ‘own goals’ haunt us in the form of multiplying threats and lost civil liberties.
Displaced Iraqis flee Ramadi as Islamic State forces advance.
EPA/Ahmed Jalil
With the war in Iraq and Syria going nowhere, the US has tried to spin a botched attempt to capture an IS leader as a success.
When Australians hear about Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s dire warnings and counter-terrorism raids, they could lose historical perspective on the threat posed by Islamic State.
AAP/Mal Fairclough
Dire government warnings and counter-terrorism raids in our suburbs paint a picture of the worst threat Western nations have ever faced. A little historical perspective is in order.
Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University