As U.S. jets pounded Islamic State positions
north of Baghdad this week, diplomats pondered their options in Paris.
U.S. President Barack Obama has stressed the importance of a
collaborative global effort to combat the Islamic State (commonly known
as ISIS and ISIL) which has been rampaging across much of Iraq and
Syria, slaughtering as they go.
The president said, “American military
power is unmatched, but this can't be America's fight alone.” He want
to build an international coalition which will come together to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State.
But based on the reactions of international leaders, he has yet to
receive any concrete commitments to take an active part in the military
campaign against the Islamic State.
Representatives from 26 countries attended a conference in Paris on
Monday to discuss the planned coalition. The conference included
diplomats from Western counties, including the United States, France,
the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada as well as the EU representative.
Arab countries including Iraq itself Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and
the UAE attended, as did the Arab League representative. The presence of
Russia, China and the United Nations underscored the global nature of
the threat posed by the Islamic State.
The representatives issued a joint, 10-point statement condemning the Islamic State,
expressing their full support for the new Iraqi government and their
grave concern at the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in
Iraq. They also committed themselves to joining “appropriate military
action” in support of the Iraqi government.
For all this activity, there has been
remarkably little offered in the way of concrete support. Here are five
reasons why forming a committed coalition willing to donate troops has
proven so difficult:
1. Arabs and Muslims Do Not Trust America
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt in
an effort to build much-needed support for the coalition among the
U.S.’s key regional allies. Although he reported encouraging
conversations, none of these three counties agreed to commit troops. Leaked reports
from an anonymous Western diplomatic source said “there is a very real
possibility that we could have the Saudi air force bombing targets
inside Syria.” However, no such possibility has yet been made public.
Arab and Muslim nations regard Western policy, in general, and
American policy, in particular, with great suspicion. One commentator on
Al-Arabiya called the coalition
“late, weak and badly planned” but still “better than nothing.” Middle
East analyst Khaled Abu Toameh writing for the Gatestone Institute said
that most reactions from Arab Muslims on joining the US led coalition against the ISIS was
that, “This is not our war and we should not be fighting it.” They
regard Obama’s foreign policy as vacillating and unreliable and not
truly committed to the fight. They also blame America for creating the
situation that led to the rise of the Islamic State in the first place,
because of the 2003 Iraq war and the support for Nouri al-Maliki's
divisive government in the aftermath of that conflict.
In addition, Egypt’s government regards the U. S. as a Muslim Brotherhood
ally that is not committed to fighting Islamists. Toameh argues that
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will never forgive Obama for supporting
the Muslim Brotherhood.
2. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar Actively Support Jihadists
Saudi and Turkey are both Islamist states with much to lose by being
associated with an American-led coalition to destroy the Islamic State.
Saudi Arabia is worried about an internal uprising should it pursue an
alliance with America against a group fighting for a very similar brand
of Salafi Islam to its own state-sponsored Wahhabism.
Thousands of Saudis are serving in the Islamic State in all sorts of positions, and the Saudis have arrested recruiters for the Islamic State within its borders.
Turkey is slightly different, having been far more active in aiding
the Islamic Sate and Sunni jihadists. Turkey's porous border with Syria
serves as a conduit for fighters, supplies and money headed to serve the
needs of the self-declared caliphate.
Oil from the Islamic State is smuggled the other way, from Syria into Turkey. A former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey said in the Wall Street Journal that Turkey is a “non-ally” that has been funding and arming Jabhat al-Nusra. Erdogan has stated that Turkey will provide only logistical and humanitarian support against the Islamic State and take no aggressive action whatsoever.
3. Conflicting Loyalties in the Syrian Civil War Make Unity Difficult
Assad has been an ally of Russia for
years, to a large extent due to the Russian naval base at Latakia.
Russia will not join any U.S.-led coalition without the involvement or
support of Assad. Sunni and Western allies, on the other hand, will not
be part of any coalition that does support Assad. Public opinion and
government policy prohibit any action in Syria that could inadvertently
help President Bashar al-Assad. Obama’s promise to arm the moderates
leads to the question of who exactly those moderates are. The majority
of the forces aligned under the banner of the Free Syrian Army have been
destroyed or have defected to other groups. The remnants openly
cooperate with Islamist factions such as Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic
Front. Finding an existing non-Islamist rebel army to support at this
stage will be very hard.
4. The EU Does Not Want to Get Involved
Western countries other than America are perfectly happy for America
to bear the lion’s share of the cost, trouble and fallout for any
Western involvement. Feared backlash from Muslim populations are part of
the reason why European countries do not want to get involved in what
is now a regional Middle Eastern war.
France and Britain, in particular, have large Muslim minorities and
have had serious problems with home-grown terrorism in the past. Europe
is in the grip of austerity measures, and there is intense domestic
pressure to reduce spending. France’s budget is already triple what the
government predicted it would be, and thus has little appetite for
further expenditures.
Britain is still scarred by the war in Iraq, which faced fierce
opposition. Any attempt by Prime Minister David Cameron to put “boots on
the ground” will face accusations of pandering to American adventurism.
Furthermore the British parliament voted against conducting airstrikes
against the Assad regime last year in a stunning rejection of the idea
of liberal interventionism.
It is symptomatic of a viewpoint increasingly common – that the
current Middle East conflict, however terrible, is none of Europe’s
business and that involvement in any capacity will only make things
worse. This attitude was succinctly summed up by Guardian columnist Giles Fraser, who wrote, “We are witnessing a shift in the political tectonic plates throughout the whole of the Middle East and beyond into Africa,
and the west’s apparently surgical involvement will probably do little
more than generate some short-term satisfaction that we are doing
something. It is not that I am morally squeamish about bombing IS
fanatics. Rather, I think we ought to recognise that we are little more
than bystanders to a war that
is so much bigger than we ever imagined, and so much more complicated
than the rhetoric of terrorism or limited conflict allows.”
5. No One Wants to Risk Their Own Soldiers
France has agreed to join U.S.-led airstrikes, but not to send ground troops. The UK may join airstrikes
but may not. It certainly will not be sending ground troops. The only
country so far to commit openly to sending troops is Australia which has
already begun sending 600 soldiers to Iraq. They will be performing a
variety of roles including logistical support, providing strategic and
military advice assisting in training, and Super Hornet aircraft. No
frontline combat soldiers were included in the contingent.
When taken holistically, the coalition seems to consist of the
battered remnants of the Iraqi army and the Kurds bolstered by Shiite
militia groups sponsored by Iran. U.S. and French air strikes -- and a
firm commitment from the United States, France and Britain not to put
their own troops on the ground -- are so far the extent of Western
intervention.
It seems that everybody wants the Islamic State destroyed, but nobody
wants to have to do it themselves. The coalition is fraught with
mistrust before the campaign even begins.
Elliot Friedland is a research fellow at Clarion Project.
Source: http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/5-reasons-why-us-coalition-against-isis-empty-shell
Radical Islam Monitor in Southeast Europe
