Planet ISIS

 ISIS's atrocities keep failing to slot into our preferred geopolitical narratives. After mysterious explosions killed almost 100 civilians in Iran at the start of the year, I gritted my teeth for the conspiracy theories to start pouring in. I thought we would hear endless rumor-mongering that Israel and/or the US were somehow behind it. Maybe Seymour Hersh would even write a Substack post declaring that his trademark anonymous "sources" inside the US intelligence services had told him as much; and since no other evidence would ever emerge on either side to confirm or refute it, we would never really know the truth or be able to cast doubt on this narrative. 

But instead of any of that happening, the Islamic State came forward and claimed responsibility. 

Much the same thing happened this past week, following the horrific attack on civilians gathered at a concert hall in Moscow. After this atrocity happened, I thought we would once more be in for an endless merry-go-round of conspiracy theorizing, and would never really know the truth. After all, it would plainly be in the interests of Putin's government to try to attribute the attack to Ukraine—which they immediately proceeded to do. And I confess that this prompted an alternative conspiracy theory in my own mind, which I quietly entertained for the first few hours after the attack—namely, I speculated that Putin planned it in order to make a bogus attribution to Ukraine and anchor support for his war effort. 

In my defense, Putin has in fact been plausibly linked to the 1999 apartment bombings that were used to justify the Second Chechen War. One of the most prominent dissidents who accused Putin of staging these bombings as a "false flag" operation was later assassinated under suspicious circumstances—which British authorities linked to Russian state actors. And Masha Gessen raises doubts about the 2002 hostage crisis in Moscow as well, in their book about Putin, The Man Without a Face, which bears a certain superficial resemblance to last week's attack (both occurred in Moscow theaters). 

Then there was the rapidity with which Putin's government pounced on the attack and tried to twist it to their advantage. It all suggested I shouldn't put it past Putin to slaughter his own civilians to score a propaganda victory. 

But then, just as in Iran, along came ISIS and deflated all the conspiracy theorizing. I guess we can be "glad," in a grim sort of way, that ISIS is so proud of their own atrocities. They always seem to trip over themselves in their rush to take credit for their own unprovoked massacres of civilians. "Look at us," they say, "we just gunned down a bunch of defenseless unarmed civilians in a concert hall! Aren't we great?" Plainly, they are off in a different moral universe—one unrecognizable to most of us—and a different geopolitical universe too, which is why it is so hard for both the West and Russia to make any sense of their attacks or attribute the correct motives to them, until ISIS steps forward to overtly claim responsibility. 

It turns out, after all, that ISIS is fighting their own bizarre sectarian war that does not fit into any of the geopolitical conflicts that the Western media tends to write about. The attack on Iran turned out to have nothing to do with the Israel-Hamas conflict—even though everyone in the West assumed it must have something to do with that, at first, seeing as it concerned Iran. Likewise, the attack in Moscow turned out to have nothing to do with the war in Ukraine on either side—even though we all assumed at first that was the most likely connection, even if we disagreed as to which side was most likely responsible and who had the most to gain. 

Instead, it's ISIS off on its own planet, fighting its own strange ideological wars. Far from intervening in Western geopolitical conflicts, the terrorist group seems most focused on attacking other branches of political Islamist extremism. They are outraged with Iran for being a Shiite power; they are attacking Russia because Putin's government has backed Assad's regime in Syria. What we are really witnessing here, then, is a conflict between Sunni and Shia interpretations of political Islamism, having nothing to do with what the West tends to see as the main conflicts on the geopolitical stage (Western democracy vs. Putin's authoritarianism; Western secularism vs. political Islamism, etc.). 

I suppose it's just another appearance of our old friend the "narcissism of minor differences." Extremist movements of all kinds are so deeply embedded in their own limited worldview that they tend to devote their time and energy to attacking other, slightly different sects of their own ideology. The worst foes that they can conceive are the branches of their own movement that are almost exactly like them—but not quite. 

I am reminded of Godard's outstanding film about young Parisian Maoists in the 1960s, La Chinoise. The most morbidly amusing thing about these incompetent young extremists, fed on a fantasy of political violence, is that they spend all of their time trying to assassinate Soviet officials. They are so far down the extremist rabbit-hole, that is to say, that they aren't even bothering to attack the "bourgeois" state around them. They are spending their time and resources instead attacking rival interpretations of Marxism-Leninism, which they have been taught to regard as "revisionist," and thus more evil inherently than even the capitalist imperialist police state itself.

But even though ISIS's attacks turn out to have nothing to do with our preferred geopolitical narratives, on either side of any of these conflicts, that hasn't stopped interested parties from trying to manipulate them for propagandistic effect. Putin's regime has still tried to warp the interpretation of the Moscow theater attack to its own advantage. While (eventually) acknowledging the attack was the work of Islamist extremists, the Russian government has nonetheless tried to insinuate that Ukraine might be partially responsible; i.e. that they might have somehow facilitated or permitted the attack to occur. 

(Putin's government has also made a deliberate show of gruesomely torturing the people arrested on suspicion of taking part in the attack—seizing another opportunity to normalize the regime's autocratic violence and the breakdown in the rule of law that has occurred on Putin's watch. Take note America—that's what authoritarianism looks like! When Trump says he wants to torture ISIS suspects—guess what; that's what it looks like; it looks like cutting off the ear of a bound and helpless man and forcing him to eat it; that's what you will get, America, if you empower men with the autocratic spirit of Putin and his right-wing U.S. acolytes.)

And meanwhile, right-wing U.S. politicians are trying to use the attack to harp on their favorite theme of fear-mongering about immigration. Senator Marco Rubio, in another step to divest himself of any lingering shred of credibility, has invoked the Moscow attack to try to plant the seed of fear that ISIS might somehow smuggle terrorists through the southern border (though why the extremist group would need to resort to this is left unexplained—since they seem to have had little trouble recruiting U.S. citizens in the past). 

In addition to being a blatant attempt to manipulate a horrific tragedy to stoke unrelated fears and stigmatize a vulnerable group, Rubio's comments also happen to fit neatly with the Russian propaganda line—as does an increasing amount of GOP rhetoric these days. How so? Well, because the main Republican talking point against providing more Ukraine aid these days is to say that the U.S. cannot protect Ukraine from Putin's aggression "until we have protected our own southern border" from a group of defenseless asylum-seekers and refugees, who are vaguely analogized on this argument to Putin's invading army. 

So, if the GOP can divert the Moscow concert attack story into yet another reason to prioritize shutting down the border and victimizing asylum-seekers over defending our democratic allies from Putin's aggression, then Ukraine aid becomes even less likely to ever pass Congress. I'm sure Russian state media accounts and hired online trolls are already promoting the same line, for just this reason. I'm sure they are doing all they can to amplify Rubio's remarks. 

And so, even if ISIS is off on their own planet, fighting an incomprehensible sectarian battle, they have nonetheless still managed to provide Putin and his growing coterie of GOP sympathizers with a potent tool: they have stoked primal fears. And fear, as every propagandist knows, can always be manipulated to support authoritarianism.