Over the past fifteen years one aim of this series of columns has been to see the world from the perspective of those groups opposing the west, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere. One way has been to publish more than twenty consultancy reports from the fictional South Waziristan Institute of Strategic Hermeneutics (see "The SWISH Reports, 2004-14"); a second was a single column looking at the war through the eyes of a young United States marine and an Iraqi ISIS fighter (see "A tale of two men", 16 April 2015). More recent are ten letters from Raqqa, written over a two-year period as if from an ISIS analyst in Raqqa to a friend in Baghdad (see "Letters from Raqqa, 2014-16", 3 January 2017).
Here is another approach to the issue. How might an ISIS planner rate leading political figures in western states – the “far enemy” – at a time when the movement is under considerable pressure in Iraq but still seeks to foment divisions, distrust and Islamophobia in states way beyond the Middle East? (see "After Mosul, what?", 23 February 2017).
There is no doubt about ISIS's brutality. Yet there is also no question that it sees its prospects, especially in western countries, as closely related to the actions and statements of those who use their authority to scorn not just ISIS but Islam and Muslims as a whole. With this in mind, it may be salutary to think how western politicians and others might be ranked in terms of their value that ISIS sees them having to the movement, not least through the polarisation of political views in so many countries. If polarisation aids ISIS, what figures does the movement think helps it the most?
