West’s half-hearted approach to Daesh

David Cameron has been back in Downing Street for two weeks, but already he finds himself having to contend with a global crisis that has the potential to exceed anything he faced during his first spell as Prime Minister. From Britain’s perspective, the capture of the western Iraq city of Ramadi by Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) fighters is alarming on a number of fronts.

The fall of Ramadi demonstrates that Daesh can no longer be seen as an organisation that, as our political leaders would have us believe, has been forced on to the defensive by a combination of US-led coalition air strikes and a resurgence of the Iraqi military’s fighting ability.

On the contrary, Daesh’s seizure of Ramadi demonstrates it is very much a force to reckon with, one that remains determined to achieve its ambition of establishing an Islamist state amid the former Ba’athist strongholds in both Syria and Iraq, from where its British-born supporters will be encouraged to return home and continue their gruesome war.

This latest success, moreover, comes at a time when the main focus of the coalition’s effort is supposed to be centred on preparing for the military operation, due to take place this summer, to liberate Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, which was captured during Daesh’s original occupation of large tracts of the country last year. With the Iraqi government now setting the removal of Daesh forces from Ramadi as its immediate priority, the long-anticipated assault on Mosul looks like being postponed indefinitely.

The fact that Haider Al Abadi, the Iraqi Prime minister, is likely to rely heavily on Iranian-backed Shiite militias to reclaim Ramadi is also problematic, even if they do — as is being reported — operate in tandem with Sunni units. The main reason Iraq finds itself in its current chaotic state is the long-standing sectarian divide between Sunnis and Shiites, which can only deepen further if the Shiite militias succeed in claiming control of Ramadi, a major Sunni stronghold.

The prospect of Iran extending its influence further into the Iraqi heartlands, with all the implications that will have for the future security of the vital Gulf region, is not one that western politicians should greet with enthusiasm. The gravity of the situation in both Iraq and Syria, where the Bashar Al Assad regime looks to be in imminent danger of collapse in Damascus, certainly serves as an indictment of the half-hearted approach most western powers, including the US and Britain, have adopted to tackling the Daesh menace.

US President Barack Obama has tried to keep American involvement to a minimum, while Britain’s contribution has amounted to little more than tokenism, such as deploying a few ageing Tornado jets which, owing to parts shortages, have struggled to play an effective role in the coalition’s air campaign. Previously, Cameron could blame Britain’s limited input on the objections of the Liberal Democrat members of the National Security Council, such as Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, who consistently opposed any Downing Street proposal for Britain to have a more meaningful input into the war effort against Daesh.

The paucity of Britain’s commitment, moreover, has led to an increasingly strained relationship with Washington, where earlier this month a visiting delegation of senior British officers were berated by Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, for their meagre military efforts. Cameron is no longer tethered by the constraints of coalition government and, with a new defence spending review in the offing, next week’s Queen’s Speech provides him with the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that he is serious about meeting Britain’s international responsibilities, as well as providing the Armed Forces with the resources they need to participate fully in coalition operations.

While there is no political appetite on either side of the Atlantic to repeat the large-scale military interventions seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is still a great deal that Britain could do to strengthen the military effort against Daesh. During the 2011 military campaign to overthrow the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, for example, the British used an effective combination of targeted RAF bombing and special forces working in conjunction with local militias to destroy the resistance put up by regime loyalists.

The same package could produce similar results against Daesh, particularly if they were undertaken alongside powerful allies such as the US. But the concern in Washington is that Britain lacks both the political will and the military clout to commit to such a mission, perceptions the Prime Minister must now act quickly to dispel.

During the election campaign, Cameron sought to counter criticism that he was reneging on his commitment to maintain defence spending at 2 per cent of gross domestic product by insisting he did not want to see any further reductions in the strength of the Armed Forces.

Now that the Conservatives have an overall majority, he can go further still and provide the military with the real-terms increase in defence spending he had promised when he initially announced drastic cuts to the defence budget in 2010.

That way the Services will have the men and equipment they need to be able to make a decisive contribution in military campaigns against well-organised foes such as Daesh. It will also go some way towards restoring Britain’s reputation in Washington as an ally whom the US can trust to act in a crisis.

— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2015