Perhaps the most peculiar thing about Islamic State is that despite continual reports of highly successful airstrikes and proclamations from various governments regarding the extent to which the group’s operational capacity has been severely diminished, they never seem to go away.
In fact, besides the recent declaration from the group’s leadership that fighters’ salaries will be cut by 50% due to “exceptional circumstances,” we really haven’t seen any concrete evidence to support the contention that “the terrorists” (as Sergei Lavrov matter-of-factly calls them) are on their last legs.
Ramadi was retaken by the Iraqi army but the real prize is Mosul and ISIS remains just as entrenched there as they ever were. The group recently launched a serious offensive in Libya, where the country’s oil infrastructure is under attack. And no one is any closer to liberating Raqqa, the de facto ISIS capital.
Sure, Russia has released hundreds of videos depicting what The Kremlin says are airstrikes against training centers, stongholds, and, most notably, oil tankers but at the end of the day, al-Hayat Media Center continues to churn out the propaganda and the group fights on, seemingly no worse for wear.
One person who isn’t convinced that the group’s capabilities have been curtailed is Vice-Adml Clive Johnstone, a senior NATO Naval officer.
Clive is especially concerned about Islamic State’s maritime “ambitions.” ISIS, he figures, wants to build a navy. “The march of Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (Isil) along the Libyan coast has cast an ‘uncomfortable shadow’ across shipping,” The Telegraph writes, quoting Johnstone.
“We know they have had ambitions to go off shore, we know they would like to have a maritime arm,” the Admiral continues.
Back to that in a moment after a brief trip down hypocrisy lane.
Johnstone says he’s worried about “sophisticated Chinese and Russian” weapons falling into the hands of militant groups like Hezbollah. Those weapons, he says, create a “horrible opportunity” that a “misdirected, untargeted round of a very high quality weapons system will just happen to target a cruise liner, or an oil platform, or a container ship.”
Johnstone apparently isn’t concerned that “sophisticated” American weapons might be used for similar attacks.
After all, the US is arming all sorts of Sunni extremists in Syria and one group (the FSA) has already done exactly what Johnstone claims to be so afraid of: they used a US-supplied TOW to destroy a Russian search and rescue helicopter (see here for more).
The other hypocritical thing to note about Johnstone’s assessment is that it was NATO itself that put Libya in the position it’s in now. Had NATO not supported the overthrow of Gaddafi, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place and ISIS wouldn’t be running amok in the country’s oil crescent.
Johnstone goes on to describe what type of attack he imagines might be coming in the Mediterranean.
“I think it won’t be a planned, horrible mischievous act, I think it will be an act which is almost a mistake, or it will be an act of random terrorism that will suddenly have extraordinary implications for the Western world," he says.
Got that? It will either be some kind of unplanned, “almost” accident that isn’t “horrible” or it will be an earth-shattering, murderous, “random” act of terrorism. It seems pretty clear from that convoluted bit of nonsense that Johnstone has no idea what he’s talking about.
But that’s ok, because the Admiral’s point isn’t to provide any intelligence about a credible threat to a cruise liner. No, his point is to explain why NATO needs to send more ships to the Mediterranean. And because it’s not polite to say “we need to have a stepped up presence because the Russians are there,” he’ll claim extra maritime muscle is necessary because ISIS is building a navy. Here’s The Telegraph again:
The Nato allies must also not allow themselves to be “hustled out” of the eastern Mediterranean, where the Russian Navy is increasingly active, he said.
He said the growing risks to shipping in the Mediterranean mean he is “quietly worried” there will be an attack or serious incident.
Got it. So NATO needs more warships in the region because ISIS may be planning a "serious" maritime "incident." Just like how the US needs to have troops in Syria because of ISIS. And just like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan needs to consolidate power so he can combat the ISIS threat. And just like Russia needs to support Bashar al-Assad in order to keep ISIS from taking Damascus.
Now that you mention it, you can pretty much justify anything these days by claiming you're fighting ISIS. Maybe that's why they've stuck around so long. If world powers eliminate them, how will everyone explain their warmongering?