The Obama administration is hashing out its
three-year war strategy against the Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIS) –
airstrikes, funds for moderate rebel forces, and (maybe)
ground troops – but there’s a big snag: nearby Arab governments
aren’t making strong commitments to join the fight that almost
exclusively affects their region.
From the
Los Angeles Times:
President Obama wants to see more specific pledges from allies
to join and help pay for the military operation against Islamic
State militants before he will give final approval to the
Pentagon’s war plan, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, told reporters. …“The president has not yet approved the campaign plan in part”
because we have not yet completed our work of building the
coalition, especially of Arab nations, Dempsey said. “I think that
would be the point at which the campaign plan would go into its
next phase.” …Two major U.S. allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
have said they support the operation against Islamic State, but
they have so far been ambiguous in public about how they intend to
contribute, other than to assist in training Syrian rebels to take
on the militants. Turkey, another key regional power with a
powerful military, also has said little about whether it intends to
join the fight.
Because all three are nations are led by Sunni Muslim
governments, their contributions would be particularly helpful
undermining ISIS leaders, who claim to be true Sunni believers
trying to establish a caliphate, and dissuading other Sunnis from
joining ISIS.
Iran, which is dangerously close to the action, is
fighting the Islamic State, but not in a way that much benefits
U.S. goals. Iran is backing Shiite Muslim fighters who commit
plenty of human rights violations, delegitimize the Baghdad
government’s authority, and throw a wrench in the Obama
administration’s hope of shaping a more inclusive political system
in the country.
Foreign Affairs last week
projected that bombing ISIS will annually cost the U.S.
between $2.7 billion and $10 billion. Most of America’s western
allies, excepting France, have no intention of joining the
airstrike campaign. And it’s hard to blame any of them. The
billions-per-year spent on bombs aren’t the only cost the U.S.
risks by wading deeper into what is still essentially a regional
conflict.
Reuters
reports that today Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad
al-Adnani called Obama “a mule” and “urged [ISIS’s] followers … to
attack citizens of the United States, France and other countries
which have joined a coalition to destroy the militant group.”
It’s worth remembering that
propaganda with a loud bark is ISIS’s style, and that the FBI,
Department of Homeland Security, and House Foreign Affairs
Committee leadership have all acknowledged that the Islamic
State poses
no credible threat to the American homeland. Trying to knock
down this hornets’ nest, though, when it’s in Saudi Arabia’s,
Yemen’s, and Turkey’s backyard, isn’t a great way of ensuring that
such threats to the U.S. remain hollow.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/ZCpjw8
via IFTTT