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Alliances against ISIS: where is the region going?

September 11, 2014 at 1:50 pm

Extreme Islamic groups in the Middle East are on the rise and the most prominent of these is ISIS, otherwise known as the Islamic State. ISIS is an organisation that has become extremely important in the Levant, so much so that even US President Barack Obama may be forced to reconsider his foreign policy in the region, which has been marked by retreat since his first presidential term.

The US administration has taken several steps to counter ISIS, the first of them being a meeting of the UN Security Council in August, which initiated a war against the armed militant group by virtue of Resolution 2170 under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The UN decision to fight ISIS is based on many different aspects but focuses primarily on preventing the group’s expansion further into Syria as well as the group’s siege and displacement of some of Iraq’s notable minority groups, including Christians, Kurds and Yazidis.

The UN Security Council’s resolution considers ISIS’s expansion across Iraqi and Syrian territories to be a crime against humanity due to the numerous atrocities committed by its fighters. The Security Council not only condemned the actions carried out by ISIS but also called on the international community to work together in order to bring the perpetrators of these terrorist acts to justice.

The second example of international action against ISIS was the NATO summit in Wales on 4 and 5 September. Barack Obama attended and said that NATO will come to Iraq’s aid if the situation required the organisation to do so. His statement was a reflection of the concerns and fears of Western countries about potential terrorist attacks and that the social unrest in Syria and Iraq will affect their own political, social and economic stability.

The third example of international action against ISIS came with a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on 7 September following a request by US Secretary of State John Kerry to the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Nabil Al-Arabi. The meeting discussed the Arab League’s need to develop a stronger alliance against the rise of ISIS and prevent any further influx of foreign fighters, as well as freeze the group’s funding.

Regional and international alliances

It has become quite clear that the US administration seeks to establish a strong political and military, regional and international alliance against ISIS, with NATO countries at the centre, most notably the US, France and Britain. The alliance will also include a number of Arab countries, particularly in the Gulf (GCC states), Egypt, Jordan and Iraq.

The US president emphasised the need to establish “an international alliance that will be able to confront ISIS through military action, intelligence, law enforcement and diplomatic efforts.” Obama commented on how his country prepared its Iraqi allies “to confront ISIS guerrilla groups”, emphasising that, “[They] will target ISIS and ultimately defeat them.” What this approach means is that American troops will not be involved in affairs that do not affect the security of the US and that they will not interfere in the affairs of any foreign country. Iraq, for example, needs to bear responsibility for the threats on its own soil.

Arab enthusiasm

The Arab League’s meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo harboured much enthusiasm for combatting ISIS. However, many of these countries still wonder how ISIS has been so successful and if the group has the potential to spread to other countries beyond Syria and Iraq. Arab countries are uncertain about their capability to confront ISIS due to many domestic problems and shaky relations between themselves.

In this regard, many Arab countries view America’s presence and involvement will be pivotal to the curtailment of ISIS. This sentiment has been reflected clearly in many of the statements that have been made by Arab leaders and officials.

Nabil Al-Arabi, for example, has called explicitly for a “comprehensive Arab alliance that will be able to confront armed extremist groups militarily, politically, intellectually, politically and economically”. The Arab League chief noted that this framework “requires a united Arab agreement that will come to the defence of all parties in question.” He emphasised his belief that an alliance between the members of the Arab League would be based on political and economic cooperation that would better equip all members to come to the defence of countries under threat by deploying peacekeeping forces or engaging in military intervention when necessary.

As a result of the Cairo meeting, all members of the Arab League agreed to cooperate with international and regional forces to combat ISIS and work together against all extremist organisations.

The limits of the US position

It is difficult, or perhaps far-fetched, to speculate whether an international alliance would, in fact, be capable of diminishing ISIS’s influence or defeating the group altogether. It is not yet clear what implications are behind the US administration’s true agenda towards the region or what it actually wants from the formation of such an alliance. It is also not yet clear in what ways the intervention would be limited.

Naturally, the bigger question here is to what extent America will interfere in the region on a military level and for how long. Will it stay involved until the end or is this a way for Washington to counter Iranian and Russian presence and thus change the current geo-political reality of the region after they withdrew their forces?

Some of the confusion on this matter stems from the Obama administration’s refusal to intervene in the region despite the tragic events that have been taking place in Syria for nearly four years, including the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons a year ago. Nearly 200,000 Syrians have been killed due to the Assad regime’s indiscriminate shelling and use of explosive barrels on densely-populated neighbourhoods. Moreover, nearly one third of the Syrian population has now been displaced due the violence and the destruction of their homes. In addition, the US administration also refused to intervene in Iraq despite Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s sectarianism and violence against his political opposition.

Thus, the question after the formation of this alliance is will it be involved in strategies that involve aerial strikes on prominent ISIS locations? If so, we must be aware of the fact that this is unlikely to break the movement completely.

The international coalition’s strategy may involve arming local militias (the Free Syrian Army, Sahwat and the Pashmerga, for example) that may have a role to play in repelling ISIS while also strengthening local communities. And yet, this strategy may also subject the region to American influence, an outcome that could drain communities by making them vulnerable to continued death and destruction.

As such, neither of the strategies mentioned above will bring about the desired outcome of destroying ISIS. Instead, it is highly likely that any talk of forming a coalition without knowledge of the full limits of this intervention could place us all in a situation that is similar to what the American administration did to the Syrian revolution.

The complexities of the situation

In addition, it remains important to note that US efforts to form an effective coalition against ISIS does not ensure that all of the allies will cooperate with one another; there are many agendas being pursued by these countries cross the region, especially by Turkey, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

It may be worthwhile to draw attention to the fact that ISIS did not rise to power without the help of Iran and the Syrian regime, both of whom saw this as an opportunity to divert the international community’s attention from the Syrian revolution and popular uprisings in Iraq. The rise of ISIS helps both Iran and the Syrian regime to bring an end to these popular movements in a violent way.

While it is obvious that ISIS, as an organisation, was not the creation of Syria, Iraq or Iran; it grew due to regional complicity and mutual benefits. Of course, this assumption does not ignore the fact that there are also other regional actors to blame, including Turkey and the Gulf countries, because they allowed foreign troops to enter Syria and prevented arms from going to the main opposition groups.

The proposed alliance will surely cause damage to Syria because it seeks to confront ISIS on Iraqi territory while ignoring its presence across the border. Yet, it would be impossible to confront ISIS in Syria without first confronting the Syrian regime, a sentiment that was confirmed by NATO’s Secretary-General, Andreas Rassmussen. “The problem embodied by ISIS’s presence in Iraq and Syria [is] the result of one thing… the many problems that resulted from the internal Syrian conflict,” he told CNN last weekend.

What we can conclude from all of this is that ISIS has been able to achieve more than the political uprisings experienced in the Arab world over the course of the past few years. The Arab revolutions were the result of more than half a century of struggle to overthrow authoritarian regimes and yet ISIS was not only able to overthrow many of these political systems, but it also threatens the existence of the very societies it encounters.

All of these bloody events together have not been able to prompt the US administration to play an active role in confronting Arab regimes and this has caused many popular groups to retreat. This was the catalyst behind the rise of ISIS; hence, the American administration now has to form a coalition to intervene in the region.

Translated from Al Jazeera net, 8 September, 2014

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.