The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) held a summit in Newport, Wales, from 4-5 September where there was unanimity, according to US President Barack Obama, among the member states that the “Islamic State” (formerly the Islamic State in Iraq and the Syria — ISIS) poses a significant threat to NATO members, to the Middle East, and to the world at large. President Obama held a press conference 5 September, at the end of the summit, in which he explained both the American and NATO positions on the Islamic State. He pointed out that, “Already, Allies have joined us in Iraq where we have stopped ISIS's advances.” He emphasised that NATO has “agreed to play a role in providing security and humanitarian assistance to those who are on the front lines. Key NATO Allies stand ready to confront this terrorist threat through military [steps], intelligence, and law enforcement, as well as diplomatic [measures]”. At Newport, nine NATO countries agreed to coalesce to lead a large international coalition to confront ISIS. They include the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Australia, Italy, Canada, Poland and Turkey. This group of nations represents the first building bloc in an international coalition that the United States would like to put in place to take on ISIS. President Obama, on 28 August, stressed in a statement that American military action in Iraq has to be “part of a broader, comprehensive strategy to protect our people and support our partners who are taking the fight to ISIS.” He re-emphasised the importance of an all-inclusive Iraqi government being set up that would speak for all Iraqis. This government should aspire to unite all Iraqis. In this statement, the US president had spoken of the importance of what he termed “strong regional partners”, in order for any future strategy to succeed. On 5 September, during his press conference after the conclusion of the NATO Summit, President Obama spoke, once more, of the need to build a large coalition of nations and players to carry out the mission of degrading and destroying ISIS. President Obama announced, accordingly, that US Secretary of State John Kerry would be travelling to the Middle East “to continue building the broad-based coalition that will enable us to degrade, and ultimately destroy ISIS.” In this context, The New York Times published an Op-ed of Secretary Kerry, on 29 August, in which he dwelt on the importance of working on such a coalition. He wrote that, “with a united response led by the United States and the broadest possible coalition of nations, the cancer of ISIS will not be allowed to spread.” A couple of days before the Newport NATO Summit, the Custodian of the Holy Shrines — Saudi King Abdullah — urged the international community to take action against ISIS. He went to the extent of insisting that inaction would invite terrorist attack within Europe in a month's time, and in the United States in the following month. Needless to say, Saudi Arabia should be worried about the growing influence of the “Islamic State”, because if unchecked there is no doubt it would target Saudi Arabia in the not too distant future, and Egypt, in order to destabilise the region and through this destabilisation gains footholds in Arab countries that would be used as springboards, exactly as implemented in both Syria and Iraq. However, American diplomacy still has to be clearer about the final aims or objectives of the broad based international coalition that it began building in Newport. Similarly on which countries within the Middle East must be members, and which will be left out. Unless Secretary Kerry has clear answers to these two questions, I doubt if his mission in the region will meet the expectations of the US administration. The first thing for the top US diplomat to define is what the United States means by “defeating” ISIS from a military point of view. President Obama has talked, for instance, about reducing the threat of ISIS to manageable proportions, similar to what the US did to Al-Qaeda. But Middle East nations have no interest to coexist with ISIS, reduced threat or not. Maybe this particular issue led the Iranian foreign minister in interview with the official news agency of Iran, published Sunday, 7 September, to say, commenting on America's strategy vis-à-vis ISIS, that there is no “serious understanding about the threat and they have not yet taken serious action.” He also emphasised, rightly, that the United States “helped ISIS in Syria in different ways.” He made it clear that Iran was aware of this “danger from the beginning and we helped the Iraqi people, whether Shia, Sunni or Kurdish, and we managed to prevent this threat from spreading”. He said that this “danger threatens the entire region and requires international cooperation”. As far this Iranian help is concerned, the Kurdish regional government admitted publicly this week that Iran was the first country to send military assistance to Irbil, short of sending ground troops. One of the basic questions will be the role of both Iran and the Syrian government in destroying ISIS. As for Iran, US State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said on Friday, 5 September, that the United States was open to “ engaging” with Iran, but Washington “will not be coordinating our action together”. This raises the question of how far the US is willing to go in the process that was described as “engaging with” Iran. And how would the US administration do so while refusing to deal with the Syrian government and training and arming what it describes as “vetted members” in the Syrian opposition? The US administration has requested Congress to approve a $500 million budget to train and arm those “vetted members”. The irony is that President Obama, before sending this request, said it was not true to say that had the United States armed the so-called “Free Syrian Army” that things in Syria would not have gotten so bad, with the emergence of the Islamic State and the endurance of the Syrian regime, because the members of this armed group were physicians, pharmacists, accountants and teachers with no combat experience. Should Egypt join this grand coalition? And if yes, under what conditions, and in what form? It goes without saying that no Egyptian troops should participate in any combat missions either in Iraq or in Syria. What we can do is to share intelligence with the coalition and coordinate political and diplomatic efforts regionally and internationally, save with the Turkish government. I think the essential role for Egypt is to work with other Arab powers to form an Arab coalition that will not be at odds with the coalition that the United States is pushing for, but will direct Arab efforts towards strengthening our defences to contain the spread of ISIS, and coordinate with Arab partners to defeat all the terrorist organisations operating across the Arab world, including ISIS. Such efforts should be coordinated with the Iranian government when warranted. And Turkey should be kept at bay for the simple reason that its policies for the last three years and a half have been responsible for the spread of these terrorist groups. The writer is former assistant to the foreign minister
