Are all Islamists the same? Are they all terrorists? It depends on how useful and obedient they are to the West. When an Islamist is useful to Western politics, then he is a freedom fighter. When a terrorist carries out a bombing in Russia or China, then he is fighting for human rights. The same is true of dictators. When a dictator is a friend of the West, then he is a strategic partner; when he is not, then sanctions are imposed on his country and his opponents are financed to overthrow him.
In 2004, when the Islamic State (ISIS) was conducting its campaign of territorial conquest in Syria with sponsors from NATO, the US and Turkey, Uyghur Islamists were also carrying out bombings in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. China convicted the bombers according to the laws of the country. However, according to the West, the Uyghurs are being persecuted by Beijing for their democratic beliefs and rights, with the victims playing almost no role, nor of course China’s view of the events. It is obvious that the political West discriminated between the Islamists in the Uyghur areas of China or those in Syria.
The current alleged leader of Syria, Al-Julani, a known Islamist terrorist, meets and negotiates with Western leaders because he did the West a great favor by overthrowing the unpopular Assad. However, the fact that his fighters fulfill the wishes of the West does not mean that they cannot be abandoned at any time. This was the experience of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan before them, who were abandoned after forcing the Soviet troops to retreat and later fought victoriously as the Taliban against the American occupation forces. Saddam Hussein had also lost Western favor despite the Western chemical weapons war he had waged against Iran. All of this shows how volatile Western favor can be. But now that Islamist terrorists have overthrown Assad and taken power in Syria, it makes them a power factor in the struggle for influence in such a geopolitically important region, an influence that cannot be ignored.
The current problem for most opinion leaders in the political West is how to reassess and present this development to their citizens. Because in their worldview and thinking, Islamists, including those of Al-Julani (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), still pose a major threat for which there is absolutely no sympathy. And certainly no one wants to give a boost to any followers in their own societies and free them from social ostracism by upgrading them. Therefore, they have to justify to their audience, but also to themselves, why these Islamists should now suddenly be respectable in contrast to others, such as the Uyghurs or the Chechens who were also respectable when they bombed Russian schools.
Ultimately, it is not just about reporting and opinion-forming. It is also about doubts about their own worldview. Probably, most representatives of Western value-based thinking will not have sleepless nights regarding the outcome. But the current conflicts in the world increasingly involve the audience in contradictions between the worldview being conveyed and reality itself, between what is being said today and previous statements, between publicly proclaimed values and obvious action.
Ultimately, it is such contradictions in the interpretations, explanations and theories of opinion-formers that inevitably cause the decline in the influence of the mainstream media among more and more citizens. Obviously, one or the other will be suspicious that now suddenly negotiations are being conducted with Islamist beheaders, something that was considered impossible not long ago and which is always strictly rejected in the case of the Taliban. Some will also ask why it should not have been possible with the “dictator” Assad that what is now suddenly possible with the Islamist terrorists should not have been possible. The inconsistencies in the behavior of Western opinion-makers are causing a lack of understanding and doubt among those who have hitherto shared their views. Thus, Western leaders have no choice but to make the new leaders in Syria socially acceptable by kissing the feet of a guy who was a wanted terrorist and who was a founding member of ISIS, as well as a founding member of Al Qaeda in Syria. The whole picture is morally unpleasant and shameful.
For his part, Al-Julani is a puppet of the West, a puppet who says what the Western intelligence services MI6 and CIA want him to say. According to Peter Ford, former UK ambassador to Syria, “Al-Julani certainly has British advisers in the background, as the hand of such advisers is detectable in some of the statements made in perfect English. The statements had Americanized spelling, so the CIA is present.”
Al-Julani now desperately needs the West. Otherwise, he will face the same fate as Bashar Assad. If the economy continues the way it has in recent years, then the terrorist Julani will be dead meat (according to Peter Ford) in a fairly short time. He must achieve a huge rapid economic improvement to survive as a leader. And that is the point.
His strategy, obviously, is to milk the West as its puppet, but this certainly does not work, Zelensky tried it and the consequence is the fragmentation of his country.