Not What It Might Appear

Mary Dejevsky writes:

The most direct consequence of the murder of 21 Egyptian guest-workers outside the Libyan city of Sirte has been a torrent of angry and aggrieved statements from senior Egyptians, backed up by air strikes overnight on Islamist targets in Libya.

It is suddenly possible to envisage a state of war arcing from Iraq in the east to Libya in the west, with existing – largely internal – conflicts being augmented by an old-fashioned state-to-state war between Egypt and its neighbour Libya.

For a government led by a former general, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who took power in what was essentially a military coup and faces seething discontent at home, the temptations of engaging in an external conflict are obvious.

Yet this would be to jump ahead, perhaps much further and faster than is justified.

Indeed, the least reliable conclusion from the events of the weekend is probably the most obvious one: the claim that the perpetrators represent the same Islamic State that has cut a swath through northern Iraq and Syria.

If anything, the claim underlines rather the nature of Isis as a collection of affiliates, a forbidding – and thus useful – brand name designed to scare enemies with its invocation of a larger cause.

Its fundamentalist objectives may be shared, but its geographical sweep is not what it might appear: the actual territory held by Isis, and its degree of organisation, should not be exaggerated.

The more immediately disturbing implications of the killings are different. One is their incontrovertible religious aspect.

The Egyptian workers were abducted and subsequently murdered not primarily because they were foreigners, but because they were Christians.

In Egypt, al-Sisi has tried with moderate success to reverse the outbreaks of anti-Christian violence that threatened to multiply after the revolution in Egypt.

Seen in a wider geographical and historical context, however, these efforts look doomed.

With a few exceptions, it is hard to imagine there will be thriving Christian communities anywhere in the wider Middle East within the decade.

Another implication is the culpability of the US, Britain and other western nations, or at least the unintended consequences of our actions.

Like the individual western hostages killed in the name of Isis before them, the 21 Egyptians were dressed in orange jumpsuits for their execution.

The reference is to Guantánamo Bay and what is widely seen by many Muslims, not just in the greater Middle East, as a religious war waged by the west.

This has a legacy that is passing to a new generation.

Then there is the invasion of Iraq and its shamefully mismanaged aftermath.

The disbanding of the military and political elite under the guise of de-Baathification was a mistake on the grand scale that led directly, if not to the formation of Isis, then to the way the movement has been embraced by Iraq’s Sunnis.

In this respect, it hardly matters whether Isis itself, an affiliate, or simply fighters trading under the name were responsible for the deaths of the Egyptian Copts in Sirte.

The civil war that grips Libya – with the official government pushed out east to Tobruq and Islamists in control of a lawless Tripoli – has to be laid in large part at the west’s door.

The arrogance of the outsiders who argued that anything was better than Gaddafi’s rule has caused much Libyan blood to be spilt, destabilised a vast region from the Maghreb to Mali, and is now encouraging thousands to try their luck crossing the Mediterranean to Italy.

What happened on the beach at Sirte this weekend has roots that go far wider and deeper than a band of fighters claiming allegiance to Isis.