Daesh is a ruthless and amorphous terrorist movement.
It is neither truly Islamic nor in reality a state. In the first it merely exploits and feeds off the disillusionment of Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Syria feeling that they now have no secure place in their own countries. For the second it puts forward the illusion of a caliphate, rejecting the old imperial state boundaries and emphasising the purity of a new Muslim organisation.
This is overlaid with a medieval brutality which a few find compelling but which the vast majority of people of all branches of all religions in all countries find repulsive. It should be called Daesh, rather than ISIS, because the term in Arabic indicates both mockery and contempt.
Daesh has displayed a mastery of social media, a sophistication in terms of its propaganda message and a highly motivated military campaign on the ground. It has contributed greatly to chaos and suffering across the Middle East.
However, in terms of a threat to western society Daesh has not displayed the ability to assault anything other than people not in a position to fight back.
In other words it can execute journalists, shoot tourists or encourage attacks on unarmed soldiers, heinous acts for which the perpetrators should be brought to justice but not ones which threaten the structure of society.
In terms of a western strategy, we should consider what failed in the past which should give us a clue as to what might work in the future.
The strategy we should employ would be one which took on the extremist propaganda as a battle of ideas, emphasised the role of diplomacy in sustaining an anti-Daesh coalition, cut off the supply of its ample finance, and identified military action only as a means of protecting and reinforcing communities under direct threat from the extremists helping those who are carrying the fight to the terrorists on the ground.
Instead over the last decade there has been blunder after blunder. Western governments have dismantled previous power structures without any real regard as to what was to replace them.
The removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003, welcome in itself, was carried out under a false prospectus an illegal war and one with little or no planning of the consequences. The result was the chaotic vacuum out of which Daesh has eventually emerged.
This week figures have emerged from the House of Commons Library which show the UK spent 13 times as much bombing Libya as in rebuilding that country.
The result has been another failed state and yet another dark well from which extremism springs. Before the Prime Minister embarks on yet another military adventure in yet another country he should pause to consider these figures: £320 million in bombing Libya but £25 million in rebuilding Libya.
In that contrast there lies a lesson about the causes of a further policy failure and one carried forward on Cameron’s watch, not that of Tony Blair. What is certain is that if we repeat these mistakes then the cycle of violence will continue.The old ‘uns are the best ‘unsWhat a joy it was to watch the TV coverage of the Seniors Golf Open third round.
As a result of the ups and downpours of the climate the second round had run over into Saturday morning and thus the old boys were back at it until sundown on Saturday.
A field including Watson, Montgomerie, Couples, Woosnam, Lehman, Langer and a host of other famous names matched their skills against the subtleties of the old course at Sunningdale in the evening sunshine.
Sunningdale is one of these classic English inland courses which have been left overpowered by the boom boom big hitters of the modern game. But for the seniors it is well nigh ideal.
And it was on this perfect heathland course that the great Bobby Jones played what he considered to be his own perfect round of 66 in the Open Championship qualifying of 1926.
Jones would have heartily approved of the play on Saturday evening, albeit he retired from competitive golf as an amateur at merely half the age of the senior professionals displaying their skills around Sunningdale.
What makes the seniors such great viewing is that we are very familiar with all of those famous names.
I am a great admirer of the modern stars of golf. The coming rivalry between McIlroy and Spieth for dominance of the world game should make for compulsive viewing.
However, I can’t help feeling that when it comes to interesting characters then the old ‘uns on display at Sunningdale are probably the best ‘uns.
Kepler boldly goes… And proves Nasa’s worthNasa’s space shattering news that a second earth was circling a star a mere 1,400 light years away was another triumph for the revived space agency.
In its salad days of the mid-1960s, Nasa spent nearly 5% of the US federal budget. Now it is barely a half of one per cent. In 1965 the space agency employed the best part of 400,000 people directly and indirectly through contractors. Now that workforce is one fifth of what it was.
Thus in budgetary terms Nasa has moved from giant leaps to small steps while in terms of the numbers employed it has gone from the size of Edinburgh down to the population of Inverness.
However recent astronomical events show why Nasa doesn’t necessarily need big bucks or large numbers to reach the final frontier.
The Kepler space telescope launched in 1999 is proving the greatest success in Nasa history in coming closest to answering the age old question of whether we are alone in the universe.
Since its launch Kepler has picked out 1,028 planets with 22 of them thought to possibly have conditions suitable for “life as we know it”.
Kepler 452b announced last week is but the latest and likeliest of these new earths.
The discovery of a near twin of earth sparked an inevitable Twitter storm.
Of the thousands of comments I rather liked the wry one that Starbucks and McDonald’s were alreadyplanning a branch network. That is life, Jim, but not as we know it.