Amidst the unanimous approval of Arab states joining the western coalition, the New York Times sounds a note of caution in its editorial: “While a preliminary assessment from the Pentagon suggests that Isil [Daesh or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] and Khorasan, another extremist group also hit with air strikes by the US, suffered significant blows (last week), the Obama administration is bracing for a long campaign. ... In a documentary-type video released last week, the group said it relished the opportunity to draw the US into a new and lengthy war in the Middle East. They may have done just that.”
Beyond this apprehension, the role of the coalition in eliminating evil forces like Daesh with the support of Arab states is drawing much appreciation. The Honolulu Star Advertiser says: “The United States’ military can disrupt and degrade the army of terrorists known as [Daesh]. But air strikes alone cannot destroy this enemy force and neither would US boots on the ground. If US leaders have learned anything through decades of misadventures in the Middle East, let it be this: Lasting stability there depends on our Arab allies leading this fight, united against a common enemy that is a bigger threat to the Middle East than it is to America.”
‘Acts of savagery’
The Jamaica Observer too underlines the importance of Arab support for this cause in its editorial. “It’s not insignificant that five Arab countries — Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — have joined the United States’ air strikes on [Daesh] targets in Syria. The fact that [Daesh] cover their faces while carrying out acts of savagery only serve to confirm our belief that they are merely cowards who, unfortunately, seek to use Islam to justify their morbid and callous thirst for blood.”
The Guardian, meanwhile, endorses Britain’s role in targeting Daesh. It says: “The case for British military intervention has moral force. The rise of the black-shirted militants of [Daesh] in Syria and Iraq resembles an ugly, 21st-century reprise of the advance of fascism in Europe more than half a century ago. Their brutality, intolerance and ruthlessness seem rooted in a chillingly familiar swamp of prejudice and ignorance ... Their kidnap and imprisonment of women and children is barbaric. Taken by themselves, the beheadings of British, French and American hostages were deeply shocking. These murders reflect a broader, mostly unreported campaign of [Daesh] killing, rape and torture.”
The USA Today, on the other hand, wonders about the semantics of war and whether this coalition’s efforts can be called a war. “Two weeks after President Obama committed himself to degrade and destroy [Daesh], his war plan remains very much a work in progress, and potentially at odds with itself.”
