Islamic State (IS) militants on Tuesday released a video showing a Jordanian pilot they were holding hostage being burnt alive in a locked cage, an atrocious killing that has incensed the world. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Western leaders, including US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron, have condemned the act, but mere verbal denunciations are far from enough to annihilate these extreme forces.  

Compared to the anti-terror war Washington launched in the past, its crackdown on the IS is scant, an operation that is only a resemblance of a show to relieve the pressure of public opinion. It's a global consensus that the US must take the lion's share of the blame for the emergence of the IS. Washington has sabotaged the structure of the Middle East through waging the Iraq War and supporting the Syrian opposition to fight against President Bashar al-Assad, which has created a wide political vacuum in the border regions of Iraq and Syria and which fueled the incredibly rapid rise of the IS.

A variety of hatreds, including hostility against the West and feuds among different sects and tribes have become intractably enmeshed in the Middle East. No wonder Washington seems to be at a loss as to how to untangle the knots.

US Middle East policy is completely wrong. Now it has withdrawn its troops from the region while trying to fix the chaos from a distance. It's evident that such recalibration is ineffective, as it's based upon the interests of the US and the West, rather than the actual needs of the Middle East.

Washington at present has two enemies in the Middle East: the IS and the Assad regime. The US grudge against the latter is not less than that against the former. In addition, Washington keeps a watchful eye on Iran. This perhaps is one of the root causes for the existence of the IS.

If Washington really takes wiping out the IS as its top priority, the White House should change its attitude toward the Assad regime, unifying the latter into the anti-IS coalition. The US also needs to ease its sanctions against Iran, forming a powerful united front to strangle the IS. In this case, the IS will be rendered helpless. Otherwise, all the gallant words Obama directs toward the IS are just empty rhetoric.

Apart from the Israel-Palestine conflict, Islamic states in the Middle East are plagued with a surfeit of feuds, which is disadvantageous to combating terrorism. The US in fact can help appease these conflicts, but its inaction causes the conflicts to intensify, which, in return, is used as an approach to control the Middle East.

The US condemnations of the killings perpetrated by the IS are always timely, but many hold that it's only an onlooker. The anti-terror war so far has mainly been centered on US interests; US selfishness is the reason for the ineffectiveness of the war. Washington should learn to think for the good of the people in the Middle East and realize its interest through promoting peace in the region.