The United States might not have had a strategy for battling ISIS last week, but it does now. The NATO summit in Wales produced one. It reflects President Obama’s instincts and his ability to corral fractious allies.
It also says nothing about the use of force by the United States.
Three and a half years into the Syrian civil war, it is clear that any hopes that the overall insurgency against the Assad regime might develop in a more “mainstream” and “moderate” direction have dissipated.[1]
Last week, President Obama said that he has no strategy yet to confront the Islamic State (IS) in Syria. He was attempting to counter speculation about American bombing of IS targets there. It had been rumored that the President wanted to decide on a war plan by the end of the week.[1]
American airstrikes might be needed in Syria, but that would not be the most important tactic for success, nor would more material aid to the rebels be sufficient to contain the Islamic State over the long term. As in Iraq, there has to be a political angle as well.
The outlines of a US strategy to roll back ISIS, or the ‘Islamic State’ as it styles itself, in Iraq have become relatively clear, even if success is uncertain.
If the future of a nation is built on the competencies learned by its children, then the future of Syria gives cause for great concern. Since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011, at least 3 million children have been unable to go to school, the vast majority of them within Syria itself.[1] Interventions are urgently required to educate these children so that they can help rebuild Syria.
Paul Salem, MEI’s vice president for policy and research, examines President Obama’s decision to step up US intervention against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Iraq, and what it implies for broader US policy in the region, in this Expert Q&A.
How do you read the import and impact of President Obama’s recent announcements of airstrikes and humanitarian intervention in Iraq?
Not Our Kind of Caliph: Syrian Islamists and the Islamic State
On June 29, the al-Qaeda splinter faction known as the Islamic State (formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS)[1] declared its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to be the caliph, or successor to the Prophet Mohammed, a post that no one has claimed since 1924.[2]
Jordan has survived – and at times even prospered – for decades because of its ability to collect “strategic rents.” Unlike its Saudi neighbor, which has long collected oil rents from the global market for its energy resources, Jordan has sold its geographical location, stable domestic politics, and pro-Western orientation to the United States and its allies on the Arab side of the Gulf. Considering Jordan’s dearth of other more tangible resources, the path to survival carved by the late King Hussein and his son King Abdullah II was essentially the only one
Foreign Fighters in Syria and the Threat of Domestic Terrorism in Europe
Westerners who have joined the ranks of radical groups fighting in Syria have been likened to time bombs—and in May one of them exploded in Brussels. Belgian police released chilling images from surveillance cameras of the lone gunman’s attack on Brussels’ Jewish Museum in Sablon, a neighborhood of genteel antique stores and chocolatiers.
With the Syrian civil war raging and the ISIS offensive in northern Iraq creating a fresh crisis, Turkey now effectively has two failed states on its southern border and is dealing with new security, political, and economic challenges. Gonul Tol, director of MEI’s Turkish Center, explains how Turkey is responding to this predicament.
