ISIS: From Arabia to the West

It's still too early to tell if last week's terrorist attacks in Brussels will wake Europe from its slumber, but it appears unlikely. Despite high-level statements about the need to unite and fight against terrorism, Europe is still avoiding taking any real steps that would not only look good on camera but might actually prevent the next attack. As long as the Europeans fail to understand that the struggle against terrorism is not only about effective security services but about the contribution and even the burden undertaken by the average citizen, as can be seen in Israel -- for example, additional security arrangements, heightened alertness and reporting to the public about what is being done on the streets of their cities -- the next terrorist attack in Europe is just a matter of time.

But the most important challenge is not just swatting away the mosquitoes, rather the effort to dry up the swamp of terrorism that now lies safely in the Islamic State group's kingdom in Syria and Iraq. Knocking out Islamic State won't entirely root out the problem, but it would be an important step from both a moral and operational standpoint, cutting down on the motivation and operational abilities of radical Islam to carry out further attacks in the region and around the world. But, when we talk about drying up the swamp, no one means Europe. After the Paris attacks, the French sent a few planes to take part in the international coalition bombings over Islamic State territory -- a public relations undertaking that perhaps had an influence on public opinion in Paris, but certainly not on actions on the ground.

In the Arab world, unsurprisingly, there was a minimal reaction to the attacks, as though it were a problem that doesn't really involve the region and its residents. A minority of Arab countries, such as Egypt or Jordan, see Islamic State as a central and threatening problem. Egypt, after all, is being attacked both from the Sinai and from Libya by Islamic State operatives. But both these countries are focused on a defensive struggle against Islamic State presence in their territory. Other players in the Middle East have a completely different outlook. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are concerned about the challenge of Islamic State, but they see it as a security and political nuisance rather than an existential threat. For the Turks, the Kurds are a problem affecting the integrity and sovereignty of the Turkish state. And Saudi Arabia perceives Iran as an existential threat to be fought at full force.

The debate over whether to view Islamic State as a nuisance or a threat is also taking place in Israel between those who believe that Islamic State and Islamic radicalism present a danger for which Israel must be prepared and those who see the organization and its world view, and even its presence within the Palestinian population, as just a bother, preferring instead to focus on Iran and Hezbollah rockets as the true threat.

Meanwhile, there are reports from the field of defeats suffered by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. In Iraq, government forces assisted by the Iranians and the Americans, managed to push the group's fighters northward, into the outskirts of Mosul. And in Syria, President Bashar Assad's militia, with help from the Russians in the air and from Iranian and Hezbollah fighters, managed to reach the city of Tadmor, captured by Islamic State a year ago.

Islamic State's extremism -- which refused to, or could not because of its very essence, behave pragmatically and recruit allies, which it could have easily found in the region -- pitted the world against itself, making it difficult for the organization to set up a base in the vast territory it took over and to garner support from the local population that initially saw it as the lesser of two evils.

But from what we have seen on the ground, the struggle against Islamic State is long, ongoing and has its ups and downs; and the group's temporary retreats from urban areas it has conquered do not mean it has been beaten. In the past too, it lost territories only to return and reconquer them within months. The only chance to wipe out Islamic State is to rehabilitate the state systems in Iraq and Syria. They have been strengthened significantly with American and Iranian assistance in Iraq and Russian and Iranian assistance in Syria, but both militaries are still weak and incapable of defeating Islamic State. For that, we would need an international effort that does not appear to be on the horizon.

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