It was ghoulish and disturbing, but the Reality Television President had gotten his man, the infamous figure of Islamic State's Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. 'Last night,' explained US President Donald Trump, 'the United States brought the world's number one terrorist to justice.'
Trump was also keen to impress his audience in the White House's Diplomatic Reception Room that he had gotten 'to watch much of it'. Here, al-Baghdadi seemed to reprise a previous villainous role: that played by Osama bin Laden, the recognisable face of Al-Qaeda. It was also similar in another respect: slaying the symbolic head might provide some form of catharsis, but it would hardly redress the logistic realities on the ground.
A raid by US special forces in the village of Barisha in northwest Syria eventually cornered the Islamic State leader. Al-Baghdadi is said to have taken his own life, along with those of three children, detonating an explosive vest in a tunnel. The Iraqi government took some credit. 'Following extensive work by a dedicated team for over a year, Iraq's National Intelligence Service was able to accurately pinpoint the hideout of the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the Syrian province of Idlib.'
The swathe of reaction in the US has ranged from unbridled delight to the usual cautions associated with waging interminable conflict. Contender for the Democratic presidential nomination Joe Biden hoped to sound vigilant; it is an election year, so keeping the spirits up in conflict is the thing to do. 'We cannot afford to get distracted or take our eye off the target. ISIS (Islamic State) remains a threat to the American people and our allies, and we must keep up the pressure to prevent ISIS from ever regrouping or again threatening the United States.'
Republican Senator Lindsay Graham came across as bloodthirstily triumphant. 'What the president said today was very reassuring to me — that when it comes to ISIS and other terrorist groups, we're coming after you, wherever you go, as long as it takes to protect our country and our way of life.' But the senator had good competition from colleague Mitt Romney, who suggested that al-Baghdadi, having 'spread "fire and brimstone" on earth', felt it now in hell. 'To all those who arranged his change of venue — the intel officers, the President, the warriors — thank you.'
Ties of blood, memory and causation run deep in the Middle East. Islamic State, and the workings of Al-Baghdadi, were never hermetic. They grew from the cobbling of faulty colonial designs such as the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, which al-Baghdadi swore to eradicate, and the sporadic assistance, covert and overt, by powers claiming to fight it. Add sectarian inducing invasion such as that of Iraq by US-led forces in 2003, and civil war in Syria, and a perfect storm ensues.
Since then, efforts have been made to dismiss the Sykes-Picot agreement for being the cement and mortar of propagandists rather than the actual carvings out of the Middle East by France, Great Britain and Russia. 'For al-Qaeda,' suggests Middle Eastern historian James L. Gelvin, 'this conspiracy justifies its defensive jihad. For IS, it justifies an offensive jihad to re-establish a caliphate that, they anticipate, will eventually unite the entirety of the Islamic world.'
"With the US disengaging from Syria, and Turkey's invasion from the north to suppress and evict Kurdish fighters, Islamic State have reason to feel confident in regrouping."
Gelvin is only right to a point. In a geographical region teeming with symbolism and the rapacious effects of oil, entities like Islamic State have flourished, combining business, jihad and statecraft.
This explains, to some extent, the somewhat crass remark by Iran's information minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi, made in the briefest of tweets to Trump: 'Not a big deal! You just killed your creature.' Ali Rabiei, Iranian government spokesman, added another tart reflection: 'The killing of Baghdadi will not end Daesh (Islamic State) and its ideology ... which was created and flourished with the help of regional petrodollars.'
Countries with patchy records in their dealings with Islamic State have also crooned over a demise they did little to encourage. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrated the 'killing of Daesh's ringleader' as 'a turning point in our joint fight against terrorism', regarding the Kurdish YPG which had done more than most to fight the movement as equivalent terrorists. Often forgotten is the role played by Turkish negligence to arrest the rise of al-Baghdadi's movement, along with the fracturing of Iraq and the Syrian civil war.
With the US disengaging from Syria, and Turkey's invasion from the north to suppress and evict Kurdish fighters, Islamic State have reason to feel confident in regrouping. Captured fighters and their families have fled. In truth, there is much to suggest that the death of al-Baghdadi was ultimately irrelevant, much as bin Laden's was in May 2011. The relevantly dangerous activity was already taking place elsewhere. As the Pentagon inspector general's report noted in August this year, 'Despite losing its territorial "caliphate", the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) solidified its insurgent capabilities in Iraq and was re-surging in Syria.'
So the killing promises to continue, with the protean monsters drawn from apocalyptic fantasy and political franchises that straddle the globe, ever replaceable with boundless resources of succour and strategic support in the interests of Realpolitik. The soil that brought forth Islamic State is far from barren. Those not in the boardrooms, in the pulpit, or at the summit tables, will continue to suffer most.
Dr Binoy Kampmark is a former Commonwealth Scholar who lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Main image: Donald Trump announces on 27 October 2019 that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed in a military operation in northwest Syria. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)