Advertisement

Obama's ISIS strategy relies on allies with reputations for brutality

 
Published Sept. 10, 2014

WASHINGTON — Whatever strategy President Barack Obama lays out tonight to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is sure to rely heavily on buy-in from rival Muslim powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran — one a Sunni Muslim kingdom with its own grim penchant for beheadings and the other a Shiite pariah state that's executed thousands of dissidents.

Although hardly ideal, these partners are vital to any serious effort to weaken ISIS, according to foreign policy analysts who are tracking the U.S. response. Depending on hardline Islamist theocracies to help in the fight against an even more militant, self-proclaimed caliphate is among the many uncomfortable scenarios Obama must accept if he's serious about wading deeper into Middle Eastern wars.

"The lessons of the past 15 years, good and bad, have taken us to this point, where these are the two key actors," said Salman Shaikh, the director of the Brookings Institution's Doha Center in Qatar. Hitting on a plan that looks after U.S. as well as regional interests, he said, would need "real political compromise and accommodation, and we'll see whether Kerry and the American leadership can deliver that."

Secretary of State John Kerry left Tuesday for visits to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, where he's expected to seek the Arab political cover necessary should the United States broaden its Iraq-focused campaign to Islamic State positions in neighboring Syria. The Arab monarchs on Kerry's schedule are sure to bring up yet another uncomfortable truth: Virtually any action against ISIS inside Syria will help the forces of President Bashar Assad, whose ouster the United States has demanded.

The Sunni powers are nervous about ISIS but are skeptical of throwing in with the United States unless there's a real commitment to securing more Sunni political representation in Iraq and more support for moderate rebels fighting the Assad regime. The Americans counter that the Sunni leaders also have room for improvement, starting with the need to crack down on groups that send money and fighters from the Persian Gulf states to ISIS, which controls roughly half of Iraq and a third of Syria.

"Without us having some skin in the game, it's not clear that all the parties would play their assigned roles," said Gregory Gause, a Persian Gulf specialist who heads the international affairs department at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. "The Iranians would be fighting these guys anyway, but the Turks might say, 'We have to do a deal with them if they control all this territory.' And the Saudis might say, 'These guys are bad, but they're fighting Assad and Iran.' "

Iran, meanwhile, is what Shaikh called the "silent partner" in the coalition, too radioactive to be explicitly included but whose presence and influence are too great to be ignored.

The expectation, analysts said, is that Iran would contribute discreetly by leaning on the new government in Baghdad to make more concessions to Sunni leaders and by nudging the Assad regime in Damascus toward reviving the idea of a negotiated resolution to the crisis.

Arab leaders are taking time to craft their public responses, in part because joining a U.S.-led coalition that would end up helping Baghdad and Damascus is sensitive in countries where there are pockets of support for ISIS's message of restoring dignity to Sunnis after years of humiliations at the hands of Western and Shiite enemies.

Saudi Arabia has targeted imams not just for expressly supporting ISIS but even for neglecting to publicly condemn it; other Arab nations are closely monitoring the tenor of religious speech in mosques and in the streets.

Jordan reportedly has arrested more than 70 suspected jihadists, and King Abdullah II is forming a task force to deal with the ISIS response. The possibility of Arab powers joining the U.S.-led coalition in a military capacity remains distant but no longer unthinkable, with Jordan among a handful of nations floating the idea.

But the Jordanian monarchy is facing domestic pressure; 21 legislators signed on to a memorandum demanding that Jordan stay out the fight against the Islamic State, according to news reports.

Saudi state news announced that the kingdom would host talks Thursday to "tackle the issue of terrorism in the region and the extremist organizations that stand behind it." Participants are said to include Sunni heavyweights Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, as well as the Gulf Cooperation Council, which in addition to Saudi Arabia includes Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.