aren't doing more
Updated 1402 GMT (2202 HKT) December
10, 2015
— U.S. President Barack Obama is sending
Special Forces. British jets have joined French
warplanes over the skies of Syria. Even
Germany, whose post-World War II constitution
puts restrictions on fighting battles on foreign
soil, is becoming increasingly involved.
But as the West steps up its war against ISIS, it
appears that the involvement of the U.S.-led
coalition's Arab members -- all of them much
closer geographically to the terror group than
their Western partners -- is drawing down.
Bombing ISIS: Arabs lag far behind West
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are
down to about one mission against ISIS targets
each month, a U.S. official told CNN on Monday.
Bahrain stopped in the autumn, the official says,
and Jordan stopped in August. CNN contacted
all of these countries for comment and is yet to
receive a response.
Why aren't Arab countries more involved in the
fight against ISIS?
Yemen -- not ISIS -- is the priority
for most Arab countries
Analysts say Yemen is at the center of a proxy
war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the region's
biggest powers.
Religion and ethnicity are at the heart of the
longstanding hostility between the two countries.
Iran is majority Shia Muslim and non-Arab. Most
of the other countries in the region -- including,
and led by, Saudi Arabia -- are majority Sunni
Arab, and are suspicious of Iran's motives.
So when Iranian-backed rebels seized Sana'a ,
the Yemeni capital, last year, a Saudi-led
coalition of Arab states (including Egypt, Jordan
and the UAE) was launched to try to defeat
them.
"The critical shift was the coalition in Yemen,"
says Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle
Eastern Studies at the London School of
Economics. "You're talking about a major 24/7
war. The Saudis and the Emiratis -- the two
countries with the most capacity in terms of air
power -- are flying fighter jets over the skies of
Yemen, so that's why you really have to
prioritize the fight in Yemen over the fight
against ISIS."
They're worried about what will
happen at home
Yemen may have distracted many Arab states,
but the threat of opposition -- not to mention
revenge terror attacks -- at home has also made
them fearful of greater involvement in the ISIS
fight, according to analysts.
"The Arab states, including Jordan -- after the
incident with the pilot [burned to death by ISIS
when his plane crashed in Syria] -- are laying
low," Gerges says. "ISIS doesn't just exist in
Syria and Iraq -- it has major constituency
supporters in almost all Arab countries, including
Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon and Jordan. So they
want to really minimize the risks."
"Also, remember that one of the largest
contingencies within ISIS are the Saudis. They're
not just fighters, they play leadership roles -- and
ISIS has carried out major attacks in Saudi, both
against Shiite mosques and against (other)
Saudi targets."
Arab states have long seen ISIS
as Iran's problem, not theirs
The governments under the most immediate
threat from ISIS -- those of Syria and Iraq -- are
both key Iranian allies, so why can't the Iranians
handle it?
That's been the prevailing logic amongst the
Sunni Arab states, according to regional experts.
They say Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are
also less inclined to carry out strikes against
ISIS targets if doing so helps Iran's allies in
Damascus and Baghdad.
But Gerges says that view is evolving now that
ISIS has grown into a global network claiming
terror attacks from Paris to Australia . "There's
been the idea that ISIS is a bigger challenge for
Iran and its allies than it is for the Arab states,
even though this feeling is changing now."
"ISIS has threatened not only Iran and the [Shia]-
dominated regimes in Iraq and Syria but even the
Sunni-dominated Arab states."
Putting Arab state "boots on the
ground" is near impossible
The problem with deploying a large number of
Arab troops is that no individual country is likely
to risk it, and no nation has a mandate to act on
behalf of everyone else.
Even if that wasn't the case, the likelihood of
Syria or Iraq endorsing foreign military
intervention is extremely unlikely, according to
Ghadi Sary, a Middle East expert at Chatham
House.
"I think it's going to be very hard for that to
happen -- you've seen the Iraqi reaction to the
presence of the Turkish army in northern Iraq,"
Sary says, referring to Iraq's ordering of Turkish
troops out of the country on Monday.
"It is important for any intervening army to have
the backing of the central government, or at
least the army in the country," Sary says,
"(including) the army of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad, who everyone will see as impossible to
work with."
Sary also says most Arab militaries are more
comfortable working inside -- not outside -- their
own borders.
"For most of these countries, the over-
involvement by the army in the internal affairs of
the state has become acceptable, but when it
comes to foreign intervention, it becomes
problematic," he says.
"We're seeing the Egyptian army focus on the
Sinai and its internal problems, we're seeing the
Syrian army doing that, and in Yemen it's almost
seen as the Saudi army cleaning up their own
backyard -- but not really intervention on the
international level."
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