Left: Security Council first ever meeting at Finance Ministers’ level. UN Photo/Evan Schneider
Today’s U.N. Security Council’s resolution to curb the funding of ISIS is essentially the same as resolution 2199 that was adopted earlier this year, and the sanctions that were adopted in mid-2013 under the “Al-Qaida Sanctions List”.
The major difference between today’s resolution and the previous ones is that higher level officials, the finance ministers of the Security Council’s member states attended the meeting, which added the ban on “the payment of ransoms to individuals, groups, undertakings or entities on the ISIL [Da’esh] and Al-Qaida Sanctions List regardless of how or by whom the ransom is paid.”
So why was todays’ meeting proclaimed as a step-up in the international “efforts to cut off all sources of funding for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIL) and other terrorist groups”?
Are we expected to believe that because higher ranking officials signed off the draft resolution of “enhanced actions” it will be better enforced than the previous ones?
The best portrayal of such an ineffective measures was given by Prof. Haim Harari in his famous speech A view from the Eye of the Storm: “Dealing with suicide murderers and their dispatchers using current international law is like filing a malpractice suit against a poisonous snake.”
Does the U.N. really expect that sanctioning Syrian groups that cooperate with ISIL would be a deterrence? Is it ready to sanction Turkey? Saudi Arabia?
If Turkey’s government wanted to stop the flourishing smuggling business of people, antiquities and oil and the money with ISIS, it would have tried to do it already. Had the Saudis and the Gulf States been adamant at stopping their radical Sunnis from supporting Da’esh, they would have severely panelized the offenders. Instead, they are either actively supporting Da’esh, or all turning a blind eye trying to contain the poisonous radicalization of their own population
Not surprisingly, the statements made by the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew, who chaired today’s Security Council meeting, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborn, France’s Finance Minister Michel Sapin and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasized ISIL’s dissemination of hateful propaganda and ratcheting up murderous attacks. However, none have mentioned “radical Islam” – the underling ideology that motivates this and all other radical Islamists terrorist groups and lures Muslims and newly converts to its promise to rule the world under sharia.
Todays Security Council meeting provided a good photo-op to its participants and the illusion that there is a serious effort underway to contain the highly contaminating ISIS virus. But passing yet another easily manipulated resolution will do little to stop the spread of radical Islam and its incitement to violent attacks everywhere.