The atrocities committed in the latest Paris attacks rightly horrify us, but they should surprise no one, least of all the French. An outraged President Francois Hollande announced that “France is at war,” but of course that has been the case for more than a year, since France started bombing Islamic State forces in Iraq and later in Syria. Why did he only announce the fact after French citizens had died? He apparently hoped that the war would not inconvenience his own people, perhaps that they wouldn’t even notice the conflict.
Terrorism is monstrous. The targeting of civilians is morally wrong. However, it is sadly predictable, an almost common practice by weaker powers. A century ago an ethnic Serb triggered World War I with a terrorist attack. In recent years the most prolific suicide bombers long were Tamils, fighting against the Sinhalese-dominated government of Sri Lanka. Sunni opponents of the newly empowered Shia majority in Iraq eventually took the lead in employing this hideous tactic. Now the Islamic State appears to be perfecting a weapon it had heretofore left to al-Qaeda.
There’s no mystery as to why. It wasn’t an attempt “to destroy our values, the values shared by the U.S. and France,” as claimed by Frederic Lefebvre of the National Assembly. Rather, admitted French academic Dominique Moisi, the Islamic State’s message was clear: “You attack us, so we will kill you.” By now every government should recognize what America learned on September 11, 2001. Wandering the globe bombing, invading, and occupying other states, intervening in other nations’ political struggles, supporting repressive governments, and killing residents for good or ill inevitably create enemies and blowback. Explanation is not justification. But any government that attacks the Islamic State should realize retaliation is likely, probably against people innocently going about their lives, as in Paris—and in Beirut the day before and Sharm el Sheikh a bit earlier still.
This kind of terrorism simply is another weapon of war. Imagine if the Islamic State was a normal nation. No one would have been surprised had ISIL fighter planes shot down French aircraft engaged in France’s nearly 300 bombing runs over the “caliphate.” There might have been shocked disbelief at such a defeat of French arms, but no moral outrage. The same would be the case if ISIL planes had retaliated by striking Paris. Again, that would have been a routine act of war. After all, France had attacked Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital, in October. The U.S. has bombed the capital of every major adversary since World War II: Rome, Berlin, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Hanoi, Belgrade, Baghdad, and Tripoli.
ISIL undoubtedly had the desire but not the capability to retaliate directly. So it turned to terrorism. While President Hollande studiously ignored his role in the tragedy, the 129 people slaughtered on the streets of Paris ultimately paid the price of his government’s decision to go to war. Of course, those killed did not deserve to die. But said one of the killers, “It’s the fault of your president, he should not have intervened in Syria” and Iraq.
People pay respect to the victims of the last Friday’s attacks, near Flowers the Cosa Nostra restaurant, in Paris, Friday Nov.20, 2015. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Kumar Ramakrishna of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University argued that the Islamic State made a simple strategic calculation: it cannot defeat the allies’ conventional forces, but can hope to “raise the domestic costs of Western coalition diplomatic and military involvement in Syria and Iraq.” After all, the 2004 Madrid bombing had a sobering impact on the willingness of the Spanish government to fight. If the response instead is more ferocious, as in the case of France, the expanded combat bolsters the Islamic State’s claim of civilizational conflict.
Western governments which loose the dogs of war should stop assuming that their own people will not be bitten. Being a liberal democracy does not turn bombing and killing into an act of immaculate conception. Instead of pretending that their nations enjoy immunity from the inevitable horrors of war, Western officials should make the case to their people that the likely costs are worth the benefits. In this case that includes the possibility, perhaps likelihood, of terrorist attacks at home. There are no certainties even for America, which has done surprisingly well since 9/11.

Doug Bandow (Forbes)