The US-Led Coalition Will Face Serious Challenges In Its Regional Operations

[Purveyor]

September 11, 2014

The regional-international anti-ISIL coalition, in which Iran and Russia don’t have a direct role, is going to be incomplete and might involve a few risks, cautioned Areeb Al Rantawi in an opinion piece in the Jordanian daily Addustoor.

The isolation of Russia and Iran, along with Syria and Hizbollah, might be an objective or a side effect of this alliance, which will cause two cold wars to mix: the international cold war (Washington-Moscow) over Ukraine and the regional cold war (Tehran-Riyadh) because of the sectarian divide and war of axes.

The toppling of the Syrian regime might be a second goal for this alliance. Moscow has warned of expanding operations against ISIL to include Syrian targets, amid reports that some countries joining the US-led fight against the terrorist group are seeking to build a third military force to combat both of ISIL and the Al Assad regime.

The third risk created by the coalition could be to push for normalisation of relations between the “Arab moderate camp” and Israel on the pretext of fighting a common threat. The US never misses a chance to promote Israel, and Washington has reportedly called for officially including Israel to the anti-ISIL coalition, amid Arab reservations and suggestions of a covert participation.

Should these anti-terrorism efforts seek goals other than destroying ISIL, the West and “moderate Arab countries” would sow the seeds of a new wave of conflicts between regional players, causing the entire region to slide into decades-long wars instead of winning a decisive fight against ISIL in three years as the US has estimated.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/the-us-led-coalition-will-face-serious-challenges-in-its-regional-operations#ixzz3D42mxRdv

[Fred Sanders]

1. "Should" is being used in place of "if" by the author, masking the fact this is all pure speculation

[Scootaloo]

2. From the president's mouth...

First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists. Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense. Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, s well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

...

Across the border, in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I call on Congress again to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters. In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people -- a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.

Mr. obama wasn't exactly subtle on this - we have just declared that Syria has no right to sovereignty and we are going ot try to topple Assad.