This is a complicated issue for some of our media colleagues, so we thought we would make the case clearly that it’s actually good that the United States brought about the death of the leader of the Islamic State.
Yes, we know — Trump is president right now. But despite this, the death of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is a good thing.
It doesn’t merely rid the world of the murderous, rapist terrorist (or “austere religious scholar,” if you prefer to go by the Washington Post‘s biography). It also delivers a strategic victory for the U.S. The ISIS leader’s demise will serve American and global security and weaken an organization heavily defined by Baghdadi’s leadership.
As with anything President Trump does, the killing of Baghdadi has become controversial, simply because Trump is in charge. Because of Trump’s involvement, what would have otherwise been an obviously unqualified good is now questioned on its merits, drawing multiple critics from within the media.
Two Washington Post columnists argued Baghdadi’s death was a bad development for the U.S. and maybe even a good one for ISIS. They used the occasion to attack Trump’s Middle East tactics and strategy.
“[I]t is impossible not to describe this operation as underscoring the disastrous decisions Trump has made,” Jennifer Rubin wrote. (Speaking of which, it’s probably a good thing Trump wasn’t president when U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden.)
The Post’s Max Boot argued Baghdadi’s death just isn’t that big a deal. In his zeal to show that Trump must have done something wrong, Boot discounted the importance of the American and British campaign to serially decapitate al Qaeda in Iraq after 2008. But this repeated killing of the terrorist organization’s leaders proved key in that campaign, and it is key today. That’s why Baghdadi’s death is an important victory against ISIS and one likely to produce significant strategic benefits.
[Read more: Trump: al-Baghdadi’s ‘number one replacement’ also dead]
Baghdadi was no simple terrorist leader. From his summer 2014 sermon in Mosul until his demise this weekend, Baghdadi portrayed himself as God’s incarnate representative. He was the caliph, the ultimate unitary authority for the interpretation and fulfillment of God’s will on Earth — not just for ISIS, but for all Muslims. ISIS found its constitution and its unity, as well as its reason for being, in his person and his claim to the caliphate.
Yes, ISIS can find new leaders, but Baghdadi was integral to ISIS’s theological identity and strategic narrative, more important to his own organization than bin Laden ever was to al Qaeda.
Other Trump critics have lamented the mode of Baghdadi’s death, comparing it unfavorably to the U.S. killing of bin Laden under President Barack Obama. This is even more wrongheaded. Baghdadi ran into a dead-end tunnel, chased by a U.S. military dog, and chose to blow himself up, apparently also killing his own children. Thus, Baghdadi exposed himself as a coward.
Salafi-Jihadism, the ideology underpinning ISIS, doesn’t necessarily frown on suicide bombings. But there’s a noteworthy detail in Baghdadi’s case: The only people Baghdadi took out with him were children. Even the American dog that chased him has recovered from its minor injuries. And so, Baghdadi lacked the courage even to make the last stand that he had so often called on his fighters to make. This usefully undermines whatever prestige or dignity ISIS could have retained as an organization in hiding. Its fanatics, who fought desperate struggles in the Euphrates river valley campaign over the past year, must now live down Baghdadi’s pathetic end.
We recognize that the ISIS caliphate does not need territory to survive. It simply needs minds that propel action to support it. And that’s another reason why Baghdadi’s end is so helpful. The caliph’s cowardly death will not go unnoticed in the minds of vulnerable citizens who might otherwise be tempted to find cause in ISIS’s violent promises. Where the disaffected young man in Toledo or Takoma might have, four years ago, seen a great life purpose in joining the seemingly unstoppable ISIS caliphate, today they will look upon a pathetic and disembodied empire and emperor.
The fight against ISIS will continue. Over the next few weeks, counterterrorism services will have to be on high alert for directed or inspired ISIS revenge attacks. But Baghdadi’s death is a massively positive development, and one must be willfully blind to say otherwise.
