The horror of the attacks in Paris on Friday night was orchestrated by an evil organisation that planned this multiple massacre in order to create an atmosphere of terror. It is grossly unacceptable that men who lead Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) can sit in Syria and Iraq and govern a territory the size of France and eight million unfortunate inhabitants. They have to be removed from power and tried for their crimes against humanity.
The international community needs to combine with the regional powers to eliminate this excrescence from the face of the earth. It is encouraging that the US and Russian foreign ministers, and all others attending the Vienna conference on Syria, agreed on the urgency of standing up for the rule of law and defeating Daesh. It will be important that Muslim nations take a lead in this action to emphasise to the world at large that no one can be complacent or accepting of this horror that seeks to make its home in the Arab world.
But the response must be well focused. After the 9/11 massacre in New York in 2001, the reaction started in Afghanistan to attack Al Qaida and their hosts in the Taliban government, but then lost focus and rolled on to Iraq, where the toppling of Saddam Hussain without any post-war plan for reconstruction led directly to civil war and the chaos that we now endure. Any action against Daesh should remain focused on the military task of eliminating its target. It must not get distracted into any parallel actions that the same players may well start to end the Syrian civil war or reunite Iraq, both of which are complicated and long-term political processes.
Removing Daesh and its false ideology is a priority that is shared by all nations. Its bombs have killed and maimed people of all faiths, and serve no point whatsoever. Its leaders are terrorists seeking to benefit from an atmosphere of fear.
