If you had said, one year ago, that the US would have been militarily involved in a Middle East crisis, few people would have batted an eyelid. President Barack Obama had spent months trying to convince the US public and Congress that the US needed to intervene militarily in Syria.
However, the way that this intervention has panned out would surely surprise many. The US is not intervening against Bashar Al Assad and the Syrian regime, as Obama had proposed. Instead, it is striking one of Al Assad’s biggest enemies, the extremist militia that calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Isil). And this intervention is not in Syria, but in neighbouring Iraq.
Obama’s calls for intervention in Syria ultimately failed, and now bombs are falling in Iraq. Why? There are five big factors.
1. There was strong opposition to intervention in Syria:
When Obama pushed for military action against the Syrian regime last year, other countries pushed back. Russian President Vladimir Putin, a key ally of Al Assad’s, even went so far as to write a chiding op-ed in The New York Times (which looks a little ridiculous after Crimea, but still). Iran, another key Syrian ally, also pushed back.
Even among European nations that supported the rebels, the support wasn’t powerful. In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron suffered a humiliating political defeat when he asked parliament to support intervention. France, perhaps the most hawkish of the European nations, refused to take the lead.
One key factor was that in both the US and Europe, multiple polls showed that, even if it was horrified by the Al Assad regime’s excesses, the public just didn’t support military intervention.
2. The Isil is both isolated and a threat to the US:
The Isil has few allies. Big, international powers such as Russia do not support it, and important regional powers such as Iran are opposed to it. Even Al Qaida, the group that birthed the Isil, is now against it. While the group is believed to receive funding from groups in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, no one will complain if US forces decimate the Isil. Britain and France have also, tentatively, indicated that they may join military action.
Even so, the Isil, as isolated as it is, could pose a threat to the US. If nothing else, it’s displaced Al Qaida as the international face of Islamist extremism: There are now Isil “gift shops” in Istanbul, and its flag flies in London. Its practical threat may be limited at present, but in the future it could grow: Norway recently announced it had received a warning that Islamist fighters returning from the Syrian civil war were planning a terror attack.
The Isil apparently relishes the idea of taking the fight to the US. “Don’t be cowards and attack us with drones. Instead send your soldiers, the ones we humiliated in Iraq,” Abu Mousa, a spokesman for the group, says in a new documentary from Vice News. “We will humiliate them everywhere, God willing, and we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.”
3. As the Syrian War dragged on, it became less clear who the enemy really was:
The plan to intervene in Syria was based around the idea of routing regime troops. The problem was that as the war dragged on, it became less and less clear who would benefit from such intervention. Would extremist groups such as the Isil fill the void? The concern became a sticking point for both right-wing opponents of intervention in the US and foreign leaders such as Putin, who noted that there were “more than enough Al Qaida fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government.”
“Some of the more extremist opposition is very scary from an American perspective, and that presents us with all sorts of problems,” Ari Ratner, a fellow at the Truman National Security Project and former Middle East adviser in the Obama State Department, told The New York Times last April. “We have no illusions about the prospect of engaging with the Al Assad regime —it must still go — but we are also very reticent to support the more hard-line rebels.” The current situation in Libya, where the post-Muammar Gaddafi political landscape has been dominated by violent extremist groups, seems another warning.
The argument cut the other way, too. If the United States struck the Islamic State in Syria, such action would not only present the Syrian regime with an opening, but it could also set back the Syrian rebels that Washington actually wants to support.
4. The situation in Iraq right now means that limited airstrikes can make a difference:
So far at least, this is a limited intervention, with limited targets. Laser-guided 500-pound bombs have been dropped, specifically targeting artillery being used by Isil fighters to attack Kurdish troops defending Arbil. The current situation in Iraq means that limited involvement like this can have a big impact, and while the Isil forces have shown themselves to be smart tactical fighters, they have limited means when fighting an assault from the air.
“Cities aside, most of Iraq looks like a brown billiards table,” Andrew Exum, a former US Army officer and prominent expert on the Middle East, tweeted Friday. “Open terrain + artillery/armour pieces = Christmas for USAF/USN aviators.”
Iraq’s central government and the Kurdish regional powers are also keen for US intervention. As far back as June, the Iraqi government was actually criticising the US for not providing air support yet. “This is not only endangering Iraq, but the whole world,” Ali Al Musawi, a government spokesman in Baghdad, said at the time.
5. The United States feels a duty to act:
In a speech defending his decision to take military action in Iraq, Obama mentioned the US military personnel currently in Arbil and how he has a duty to protect them. But it’s worth thinking about why those troops are there in the first place. Arbil is a regional capital for Iraq’s Kurds, who have proven to be key allies for Washington in Iraq and will be vital in any plans to return Iraq to a functioning state. The US and Iraq’s Kurds have a long, complicated history that also plays a factor here.
Then there’s the pressing issue of the Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking minority that has been targeted by the Isil. As many as 40,000 remain stranded on a mountain in Iraq, dying of hunger and thirst, The Washington Post reports. “When we face a situation like we do on that mountain,” Obama said in a statement late Thursday, “and when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, I believe the United States of America should not turn a blind eye.” Officials have suggested that the Yazidis’ situation could amount to “genocide.”
Then, of course, there’s the US legacy in the region. Many of Iraq’s current problems are a direct or indirect result of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
While the Obama administration and much of the public at large likely loathe the idea of wider military action, there is still a sense that this is their mess, and they have to help fix it.
—Washington Post
Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.
