BBC Radio 4 2016-10-18

Over the weekend Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi proclaimed that the victory bell has rung and the operations to liberate Mosul have begun." Liberating Mosul from IS is being seen as the beginning of the end of the reign of terror which has befallen the Iraqi people over the last few years. Supported by Kurdish Peshmerga troops and coalition forces, thousands of Iraqi soldiers are now fighting to take back Iraq’s 2nd largest city where two years ago Abu Bakr al Baghdadi boldly declared a new Muslim caliphate.

The liberation of Mosul will be messy and protracted, many predicting a new humanitarian disaster for the 1 million civilians living there. Whatever liberation means, this current assault is being seen as a climactic victory, the last push, the last battle between good and evil. And yet throughout their own regime, IS have used the same rhetoric of Armageddon in which the small town of Dabiq represents their theology of end times. Dabiq held ideological importance for them because of an Islamic tradition in which this will be the site of the final apocalypse between Christian and Muslims forces. For IS, Christian means western and the US in particular. And yet at the weekend, Turkish forces expelled IS from this town and its said, that when attacked, they fled `with barely a whimper.’

While many have mocked IS on social media for now saying that victory was never about holding onto Dabiq, the apocalypse delayed, their messianic vision stalled, it’s important to remind ourselves that when it comes to destructive ideologies, there never is a last battle.
The most important battles are fought in our imagination. IS are not the only religious group holding onto a deadly theology of end times which celebrates death and destruction rather than a future for all. But their terror plots painfully show that they are a global threat. A physical presence in Iraq gave them enormous power but terrorism like end times theology works on people’s fears, it looks forward to more evil than more good happening in the world until the promised time. Such ideas are in themselves immortal.

While the next few weeks will determine IS’s future, the Iraqi state will have to do much soul searching if it is to keep itself out of another deadly conflict. Even if the armies drive out the jihadists, Iraq faces the bigger struggle of maintaining peace across the political divide. Its real challenge however will be to listen and act on the aspirations of its people, ordinary citizens who know they deserve a better life and a politics of hope. Real hope against hateful ideologies isn’t found in the winners of a battle but in how a country resists division and moves forward with the peaceful cooperation of everyone.