Almost everyone has been forewarned but governments, far and wide, proved to be not farsighted enough to change course before the unprecedented took place. Last week, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an offshoot of Al-Qaeda and the successor organisation to the Islamic State in Iraq, took Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, and Tikrit, the birthplace of late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and moved south with the intent of reaching Baghdad and beyond to Karbala, the holiest town for Shias around the globe. The Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani called on Iraqis to take up arms to defend the country and, implicitly, the holiest shrines for Shias in Iraq. Many Iraqis, of all ages, volunteered, and after a one-day training were sent to the front north of Baghdad to take part in the counteroffensive of the Iraqi army to retake the towns and Mosul from ISIS. As of time of writing, the advance of ISIS has been halted and the Iraqi army has begun to strengthen defences around the capital while Kurdish forces, the Peshmerga, have entered Kirkuk to defend it against any advance by ISIS. Whether the army will be able to chase ISIS out of Mosul and roll back their advance without any outside help remains to be seen. Personally, I doubt the capabilities of the army to carry out such a mission alone. The fact that four divisions folded in the face of ISIS's advance towards Mosul says a lot, not only of the morale of the troops, but also lack of training and discipline. Estimates are that the Americans spent billions of dollars in training this army but the results have proved disappointing. The main outside help, from a military point of view, will come from both the United States and Iran, separately or jointly. Last week, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran said publicly that his country is ready to cooperate with Washington in Iraq to face “terrorists” if the United States is willing and ready to fight them elsewhere, meaning in Syria. Such a statement, a first since February 1979 after Khomeini entered Tehran following years in exile, opens up new avenues of strategic cooperation in the Middle East and the Gulf region. If it takes place, it would mean that Washington and Tehran would be facing and fighting the same forces that have been financed by some Gulf countries to bring down the Assad regime in Syria, on the one hand, and to wear down the Nouri Al-Maliki government in Baghdad. The strategic landscape in the Middle East is being radically reshaped. Already, news reports have indicated that 130 revolutionary guards from Iran were deployed in Iraq. On the other hand, President Barack Obama said that the United States would not send ground troops to Iraq, but would look into other options like, for instance, air strikes and sending military advisors. The USS George H W Bush aircraft carrier is heading towards the Gulf accompanied by two more ships. Besides, if the United States decides to launch airstrikes, Al-Udaid base in Qatar could be used. B-1 bombers are based there. The Arab reaction to the unfolding events in Iraq was slow in coming and when it took place it was not up to expectations. For example, the official Egyptian reaction was weak and did not reflect a realisation of the true threats facing Egypt if ISIS were to succeed in controlling large swaths of territory from the northeast parts of Syria to the Sunni belt within Iraq. This is the main objective of ISIS, in order to establish what it calls a Muslim caliphate, and to use these territories as a launching pad for similar ventures in other Arab countries, like Yemen, Libya and in the northern eastern part of Sinai. The Arab League issued a mildly worded statement and decided to seize a long-planned meeting from the last Arab Summit in Kuwait to debate the situation in Iraq (this meeting was scheduled to take place on Sunday, 15 June). A week after the taking of Mosul, there was talk that a consultative ministerial meeting would convene in the Saudi capital, to review the situation in Iraq. The ones who are calling the shots are not the Arab countries, unfortunately. Egypt should have acted more forcefully and energetically within the Arab League once Mosul and Tikrit fell into the hands of ISIS, for the simple reason that, strategically, this has become a threat to the country. But the cabinet reshuffle drew attention to less important issues. It was a missed opportunity for Cairo to come back with force, not only on the Arab scene, but worldwide. We should have seized this occasion to reassert ourselves as an Arab power determined to lead the Arab countries to find permanent solutions to Arab crises and problems. Egypt has a great stake in preventing the Iraqi crisis devolving into a confrontation between Sunnis and Shias in the Middle East and the Gulf and, as a corollary, between Arab countries and Iran. Egyptian diplomacy must get into high gear to forestall that from happening. Dealing with the present developments in Iraq entails dealing with the crisis in Syria as well. We have to rethink existing positions concerning Syria if we really hope to control the unfolding events in the Middle East and the Gulf. The overall situation calls for a deep rethink on the part of Arab countries that have been financing and backing the Syrian opposition fighting the Assad government for the last three years, and that has failed disastrously in its attempts to overthrow the Syrian regime. The latest tragic developments in Iraq, and the rise of ISIS, are the direct results of such a failure. It is about time to change course radically in Syria. The challenge facing the Arab world today is precisely turning the tide to start to deal with strategic challenges within the Arab world away from the foreign and regional intervention in Arab crises we have been witnessing, helplessly, for the last three and a half years. The absence of a strong and a unified Arab political will to tackle our own problems has only deepened them. The success of ISIS in taking over Mosul and Tikrit is living testimony of such a regrettable absence. To look at the situation in Iraq within a purely Iraqi context will prove a disaster for the security and stability of the countries of the Middle East and the Gulf region, including Egypt. The writer is former assistant to the foreign minister.
