Coalition of the Unwilling

[marmar]

Middle East “Allies” decline to Commit Forces, Resources against ISIL

By Juan Cole


US Secretary of State John Kerry’s meeting in Jedda with ten Middle Eastern foreign ministers produced a communique on Friday, but little more. The regional states promised to do more to stop the transit across their territory of volunteer vigilantes seeking to join the so-called “Islamic State” of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and to stop their citizens from sending money to the extremists. That neither of these steps had been taken earlier shows how unseriously Middle Eastern states took the ISIL challenge.

On Friday, faced with another visit of the indefatigable Mr. Kerry, state officials in Cairo, Egypt, were careful to say that they would and could not devote troops on the ground to defeat ISIL. Cairo maintains that its troops are already stretched thin by their current tasks . The Egyptian military is deployed within the country to keep order and to stigmatize the previous regime, on the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo. In Sinai and along the Red Sea coast, guerrillas stage frequent attacks on Egyptian troops. In any case, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has other things to do with his army than deploy it directly against ISIL. Perhaps if he stopped maintaining that all Muslim Brothers are terrorists he might have some troops left over with which to deal with ISIL.

Turkey, likewise, has announced that it doesn’t want to get involved with ISIL. The Turkish government has even declined to allow the US to fly anti-ISIL missions from Incirlik Air Base. They will only allow US forces to use Turkish air bases for logistics, i.e. things like ammunition resupply. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.juancole.com/2014/09/decline-resources-against.html

[LuvNewcastle]

1. If they won't do it, why should we?

Fuck this shit. Why should we spill our blood for them when they can't be bothered to deal with the problem in their own back yard? This is bullshit. We're doing this to make some rich men richer. Remember that when you see the flag-draped coffins coming home.

[Dems to Win]

3. +1

[Faux pas]

2. Looks to me like this is our out.

If they're not playing, why should we? Crazy.

[libdem4life]

4. Western citizens need to leave the ME. Even more so because the

Bad Guys...whoever the revolving flavor du jure...really, really want us there. First beheading an America, then Britain, next a German, or a Pole, or a Spaniard .... These guys are prepared to die for their celestial virgins or whatever. Imagine the power rush of a few anarchists flush with Western artillery and barbarian tactics playing to the magic of video/internet to bring the civilized world to its proverbial knees, however briefly.

[JEB]

5. Stop the bleeding.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. But..but..wait a minute! What happened to all those troops we trained at great expense?

Not to mention all the "good" Arabs we armed.

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Robert Burns

[onethatcares]

7. gaudammmmint

Don't forget Poland

[starroute]

8. It's partly a Sunni-Shi'ite thing

The Sunni regimes don't really want to go after ISIL, who are fundamentalist Sunnis. Iran and Assad's regime in Syria are Shi'ite, so they'd be happy to take on ISIL -- but the US doesn't want them involved, because that would only increase Sunni support for ISIL.

The al-Maliki government in Iraq was viewed as favoring the Shi'ites there to the neglect of the Sunnis, which is one reason why ISIL has broad support in the Sunni regions. And Assad is also a Shi'ite, although Syria as a whole is overwhelmingly Sunni.

What all this amounts to is that the US is justifiably terrified of inciting a Sunni vs. Shi'ite regional conflagration. It's not just a matter of not wanting to cozy up to Assad and the Iranians. We want the Sunni regimes in the area to decide that ISIL is bad news and step in to take them down themselves. But it looks like that's exactly what's not going to happen.