The two things the west must change if it wants to win the fight against Isis

British relationships with Turkey and Saudi Arabia need a rethink to stop the spread of Islamic fundamentalism around the world

Secular Kurds could be a useful ally to the west in the fight against Isis. (Getty)

It is eight days since the UK government voted in overwhelming numbers to join the coalition to bomb Syria. British bombs, we are told, will serve to constrain the influence of Isis by limiting the space within which it can operate, and degrading its presence in Raqqa – the group’s self-proclaimed capital that many Western leaders see, rather simplistically, as the radiator of the group’s noxious ideology.

To say that airstrikes alone are the panacea to transnational terrorism is symptomatic of perfunctory and emotionally driven foreign policy. This is especially the case given that our ‘friends’ and allies in the region include those that actively pursue policies counter to our own.

Two of those states in particular are Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Both are presented as moderates, yet are anything but. If the UK government was serious about degrading Isis’s capabilities, it would not have called for the Tornados to fire up the engines but would begin by revising relations with the shady statesman of these two countries.

Since Turkey voted to join the anti-Isis campaign in Syria in late August, one couldn’t be blamed for thinking Turkish PM Erdogan has confused Isis for the Kurds. On the same day it announced it would join the fight, Turkish forces began an airstrike campaign overwhelmingly against Kurdish targets. Opportunistically using the chaos in Syria to advance its anti-Kurdish agenda, Erdogan’s AKP party has launched attacks on Kurdish targets in Syria, Iraq and on its own soil.

Kurdish groups have been extraordinarily effective on the battlefield against Isis, and have actively coordinated with Washington in myriad ways. Washington has a relationship with the Kurds of Iraq which goes back to the early 1990s, when both were in cahoots to oust Saddam Hussein.

In our search for ‘moderate’ friends on the Syrian battlefield, the secular Kurds are certainly to the left of Jabhat An-Nusra and most other groups in Syria. However, the pressure they are under from unrelenting Turkish assaults is a hindrance to their effectiveness against Isis.

There is also evidence to support the claim that Turkey has tacitly supported Isis. Many scoff at the accusation that a NATO ally would support fascistic head-chopping Jihadis. Yet, Erdogan has countless times expressed his preference for Sunni domination in Syria, and has done little to tighten restrictions despite a torrent of criticism over claims that Isis is using his borders to transport fighters. One Isis commander brazenly told the Washington Post that “most of the fighters who joined us in the beginning of the war came via Turkey, and so did our equipment.”

News outlets such as the Daily Mail and Sky News have reported that many foreign (including British) militants joined Isis in Syria and Iraq after traveling unfettered through Turkey and its porous borders - or the “gateway to Jihad”, as Isis calls it.

There is also no better example of the West’s self-defeatism in the war on terror than its apparent loyalty to those who are feudal absolutists in Saudi Arabia. In a 2007 television appearance, US Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levay said: “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country [for terrorism] it would be Saudi Arabia.” A leaked Clinton memo said that Saudi donors constituted “the most significant source of financing to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”

The Saudi regime is complicit in the rise of Sunni extremism too. Since the expansion of the Soviet Union, fundamentalist teachings of Islam - Wahhabism - have been exported to poorer Muslim countries worldwide. More $100bn is thought to have been spent, and for those who don’t know, Wahabbism preaches an ideology of hate toward the ‘unbeliever,’ and declares that Shia, Jews, and Christians are apostates, and non-believers heretics. It all sounds suspiciously familiar.

Saudi Arabia even turned the other cheek to the presence of deadly Al-Qaida cells in its territory, until a blowback became imminent and government crackdowns occurred between 2004 and 2006.

Though the role of some Saudis in fuelling terrorism is recognised, Saudi Arabia is also the UK’s largest arms export market: it bought £1.7bn worth of hardware in 2014.

It is time for the West to ask itself some tough questions about the potential consequences of its failure to adequately address the divisive actions and intentions these so-called ‘allies.’ Without that, we can’t expect airstrikes to achieve very much.