Yesterday the leader of the candidates from the Democratic Party of the U.S., Hilary Clinton, stated that if she won the presidential elections she wouldn’t declare war against Islamic State officially. “To declare a war officially, it is necessary to have a considerable budget,” information agencies cite Clinton. “It is necessary to carry out a certain work to understand the threat of radical groups better.”
ISIS is considered a terrorist organization not only in the U.S., but also in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Turkey, Egypt, the UAE, India, Indonesia and Russia.
However, Sergei Mikheyev, Director General of the Caspian Cooperation Institute, believes that it is senseless to have a dialogue with the U.S. about the struggle against the terrorists of Islamic State.
“ISIS is not perceived by the main actor in international policy, the United States of America, as a threat to the United States. That is why waiting until the United States will suddenly come to its senses, when it will suddenly sober up and realize that ISIS is a terrible threat, this is absolutely an illusion. Just like such a sobering of the West did not happen in connection with the war in Ukraine. We can urge the entire West to a holy war against ISIS. But it must be understood that there is a serious share of guile in this. Maybe we can still talk about something with the Europeans. But with the Americans, in my opinion, it is completely pointless to talk on this theme,” Mikheyev thinks.
According to him, if Russia gets involved in a dialogue with the U.S. on the ISIS issue, then it accepts their rules of the game: “And their rules are simple – they lie to us, we lie to them, so we pretend that we are doing politics. America talks about the threat of ISIS – it's a lie. They are really at risk of losing monopoly leadership in this world. One of the ways to maintain this leadership has always been the weakening of competitors. The competitors are weakened through instillation of instability in their situation. Here, in Eurasia, there are the main potential competitors of the United States, which could potentially threaten their leadership. That is why instability in Eurasia is in the interests of the United States. Yes, it seems scandalous. Yes, it's rough brushstrokes. But I do not see any serious facts that would refute or deny it. Therefore, to appeal to them with these very passionate calls: "Come to your senses! ISIS is a threat to you!" [is pointless].
Mikheyev is sure that the Americans perceive ISIS as one of the side effects of a big political game: “The American concept is the concept of a stable, prosperous, growing, attractive center, an island. And they will confirm this concept. There can be chaos and instability around them. You want to be self-confident in this world? Reach out to the United States. How to do it? You have, for example, two alternatives: the Pacific Community, with which they recently signed an agreement, and the second is the transatlantic one. If you are outside of this world, then you are doomed to instability.”
The expert agrees with Russia’s statement that the Americans are strongly losing the initiative in Syria, and this is a certain success of our policy, that ISIS threatens Russia. However, according to Mikheyev, “it would be naive to hope that through this formulation of the question we will seriously change the West's attitude towards us, or the West's attitude towards the situation in the world. The West, in my opinion, and especially the Americans, is absolutely carrying out a policy of global leadership, which threatens global stability. This is one of the main features of today's world. And, roughly speaking, one can argue with that, but in my opinion this is what determines the information agenda.”
