Only Sunnis together can defeat IS
February 19, 2015
Without a doubt, the massive US-led coalition air strikes against the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) have greatly contributed to stopping the jihadist would-be caliphate's territorial expansion - for the time being.
The liberation of the northern Syrian border town of Kobani by Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters would also hardly have been thinkable without the aid of US and Arab air strikes. This undeniable success has chipped away at the myth of the IS's invincibility, but that by no means implies an imminent victory over these uninhibited extremists.
The Western-Arab fight against the IS is beginning to falter: after four months of air strikes, the alliance faces a lack of strategically important targets it could bomb. What makes the situation more difficult is that the IS fighters have resorted to guerilla tactics. That makes them even harder to fight from the air.
Fragile alliance
It appears that now, the fact that this international "coalition of the willing" went to war against the horrific caliphate without a political concept, and in particular without any definition of the military operation's strategic goal has come back to haunt them; in particular, because it was obvious that the IS terror can't be countered by military means alone.
From the start, this coalition of the willing was actually fragile and politically contradictory. It is based on dubious Arab allies, like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, that initially paved the way ideologically for the ascent of all jihadist movements in the Mideast and backed radical forces in Syria in their fight against the Assad regime.
At the moment, it is particularly grievous that key Sunni regional powers were not sufficiently included in the international coalition of the willing. It's evident in the fact that the West currently lacks allies who might be in a position to lead an effective war on the ground against the IS in the Sunni areas in Syria and Iraq.
The allies the West has been working with so far are turning out to be the wrong ones: the Kurds for the most part pursue their own territorially-defined interests; they have exiled the local Arabs from the regions they captured, declaring these areas as belonging to Kurdistan. The barely containable Shiite militia and death squads are quite simply unsuitable partners to defy the IS on the ground.
Threat to North Africa's security
Taking advantage of the chaos in Libya, IS jihadists have expanded their operative base and formed an alliance with Egyptian jihadists, which makes them a real threat for national security in Egypt and Tunisia. After the jihadist group's brutal beheading of 21 Copts, it is not surprising that Egyptian President al-Sisi is demanding a UN resolution for an international military intervention in the civil war country.
This is where the West should come in and do everything in its power to form an Egyptian-Turkish-Saudi alliance against the IS at last. If possible, it should allow for moderate mainstream Islamists - but without Iran and the internationally discredited Assad regime. Including Iran would be counterproductive in view of most jihadists' extremely anti-Shiite stance.
Since only Sunni Muslims can conquer the IS and dry out the ideological morass of jihadism, the West should really push for their integration into the Iraqi government's decision-making. The West has no other, possibly even more useful, partners in the fight against the pseudo IS caliphate.