Partners in arms: Columnist IssaGoraieb writes that Arab participation
in the U.S.-led coalition battling
the Islamic State does nothing to erase
Sunni responsibility for creating the
terrorist monster.
Anti-ISIL Arabs Have Much to Answer for (L'Orient Le Jour, Lebanon)
"By
rallying the greatest possible number of Muslim countries to his campaign,
Barack Obama can silence from the outset those always ready to scream about a 'crusade.'
… It is Islam itself in its essence and values that threatens with this
barbaric sham of Islam which is allegedly of divine inspiration. It is true
that in this case, to confront Daesh by all possible
means (and cutting off the flow of petrodollars isn't enough!) is above all the
business and responsibility of Sunnis. But this evidence [participation in
anti-ISIL air strikes] can in no way allow theocratic
excesses to pass for innocent whims, as the thirst for conquest and other
dreams of hegemony unjustly implicate other branches of Islam."
The approach of autumn is absolutely not for nothing: the
thick fog surrounding the international mobilization against the Islamic State is
nowhere near being dispelled: we saw this for the first time last week in
Jeddah, and then at the vast conference held on Monday [Sept. 14] at the Quai
d'Orsay in Paris, neither of which changed very much.
Dozens of countries, and not just smaller ones, made a solemn
commitment, it is true, to support Iraq by all means - including military. But
of these means, American air strikes alone stand out. The strikes have just
been heard in the suburbs of Baghdad, but their real effectiveness will likely
only become clear in the long term. The accompanying action plan promises to be
even slower in coming, consisting as it does of French flights that will
perform strictly reconnaissance, provide humanitarian aid, and provide arms and
combat training to those opposed to Bashar Al-Assad.
Therefore, the intrinsic question of Syria was excluded. It
was there that the hordes of Daesh, which already
control a vast portion of the country, yesterday struck spectacularly at the
gates of Damascus. The reason for the [news] blackout is quite simple: For Western
countries, it is vitally important that an eventual rout of the terrorists not
result in reinforcing a tyranny no less convincing than terrorism itself.
Less easy to manage, however, is the need for Washington and
its allies to ensure minimal cooperation, not from the Syrian government as the
regime demands, but from its Russian and Iranian protectors: risqué encounters –
a courtship that the Americans and Iranians defend with the same vivacity that
they have avoided such meetings, but which are nevertheless obligatory and
inescapable. Lebanese diplomacy is not immune from this atmospheric ambiguity.
An enthusiastic member of the international coalition, at the same time our
country is distancing itself from just about everyone else, as it advocates - without spelling it out, a dialogue with the
scourge of Damascus.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
However erratic and sluggish the "Obama Doctrine" has
been in dealing with the dramatic events in the Levant, this can always be
explained by the American president’s obsessive attention to avoiding the
mistakes of his adventurous predecessor. By excluding any use of ground troops,
he spares his own people the agony of perhaps an even deadlier war than those
in Iraq and Afghanistan; by rallying the greatest possible number of Muslim
countries to his campaign, Barack Obama can silence from the outset those always
ready to scream about a "crusade."
The logic of Western caution and the active involvement of
the Arab-Muslim world should be very difficult to challenge. After all, and
before even the Christian minorities and others, it is Islam itself in its
essence and values that threatens with this barbaric sham of Islam which is allegedly
of divine inspiration. It is true that in this case, to confront Daesh by all possible means (and cutting off the flow of petrodollars
isn't enough!) is above all the business and responsibility of Sunnis. But this
evidence [participation in anti-ISIL air strikes] can
in no way allow theocratic
excesses to pass for innocent whims, as the thirst for conquest and other
dreams of hegemony unjustly implicate other branches of Islam.
