The Middle East has confounded outsiders for years, so it is no surprise that another U.S.-led project with a straightforward goal – destroying a marauding organization of extremists – is bumping up against age-old rivalries and a nod-and-a-wink-style political culture.
U.S. secretary of state John Kerry has received backing for the principle of reversing the territorial gains of the Islamic State group in Iraq. But getting concrete assistance is another matter, and there is a whiff of lip service about the proceedings.
Much of the problem lies in the Muslim region’s Sunni-Shiite divide, which outsiders tend to underestimate again and again – only to see it emerging as the dominant factor once more. Here’s a look at the landscape:
SUNNIS AREN’T INCLINED TO HELP SHIITE REGIMES
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has come out against the Islamic State group and its acts of barbarism in Syria and Iraq. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi clearly reviles political Islam and its militant extension, the jihadis who are tearing up Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt’s own Sinai Peninsula. Yet they still have reservations about making a direct move that would be seen as aligning with the Shiite leaderships in Baghdad and Damascus. The issue pops up everywhere: secular Sunnis in northern Iraq actually felt so alienated from the Shiite government of Nouri al-Maliki and its anti-Sunni machinations that – at least for a time earlier this year – they genuinely supported the Islamic State group because it was Sunni. Iran factors into this equation as well: although its Persian majority is not ethnically Arab, it is a Shiite nation, and as such supports the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad. Several days of U.S. lobbying, and a new leader in Iraq more amenable to reaching out to non-Shiites, will not change this. Nor will the U.S. sway Turkey, another Sunni power that has not been pleased with the Islamic State group but is still eager to see the overthrow of its enemy, Syrian President Bashar Assad. The issue has no fix; what is needed is finesse.