Heigh Ho, It's Off to Coalition Building Hagel and Kerry Go

Coalition building. Easy to say. Hard to do. Ask the first President Bush who had one that succeeded. Ask President Bill Clinton and the second President Bush who had two successful coalitions each. Now, President Barack Obama wants to build a coalition of nations "willing and capable" of joining the US to combat the threat posed by ISIS in the Middle East and beyond. If politics makes strange bedfellows, so do coalitions. But, the diplomacy of coalition building is not something the Obama team has been good at. Diplomacy itself has often seemed to elude Obama, who always appears much more at ease when he is part of a group whose existence is not dependent on his leadership -- the NATO meeting last week comes to mind. But now, Barack Obama is sending his relatively untested, and largely unsuccessful when tested, Secretaries of State and Defense, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, to the Middle East, arguably the least coalition-prone region in the world, to build an anti-ISIS coalition. Their task will be time-consuming, with nuanced questions about who can or should join. And the situation is complicated by the fact that the US and its allies share an interest in defeating ISIS with some governments they otherwise oppose. As an example, Obama said last week at the NATO meeting that it will be essential to "...have Arab states, and specifically sunni majority states, that are rejecting the kind of extremist nihilism that we're seeing out of ISIL, that say that is not what Islam is about, and are prepared to join us actively in the fight. And my expectation is that we will see friends and allies and partners of ours in the region prepared to take action, as well, as part of a coalition." Using the ISIL alternate acronym for ISIS has already set Obama apart from the rest of the world. Obama's saying 'Levant' instead of 'Syria' is for many commentators an indication that he is trying to avoid addressing the question of moving into Syria to destroy ISIS safe havens there. But his erstwhile Arab coalition members, notably the sunni Saudis who oppose al-Assad and his Iranian protectors, have long urged Obama to go into Syria to support the Syrian Free Army in defeating al-Assad and ISIS. And Arab League members are suggesting that an Iraq coalition cannot defeat ISIS unless action in Syria is included. The Arab League adopted a resolution yesterday, according to the League head Nabil Elaraby, that reflects the consensus that it was necessary for its members to take a "clear and firm decision for a comprehensive confrontation" of what he described as "cancerous and terrorist" groups. "What is happening in Iraq, and the presence of an armed terrorist group that not only challenges the state authority but its very existence and that of other countries…is one of the examples of the challenges that are violently shaking the Arab world, and one the Arab League, regrettably, has not been able to confront," he said. The resolution calls for immediate measures to combat the group on the political, defense, security and legal levels but does not elaborate on what League members will actually do or contribute. The resolution also backed the United Nations resolution issued last month that imposed sanctions on a number of the group's fighters and called on countries to adopt measures to combat terrorism. The council resolution was adopted under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, meaning it can be militarily enforced. Arab analysts say the Arab League resolution reflects Arab hesitancy in the face of President Obama's refusal thus far to become active in the Syrian civil war and the corresponding growth of ISIS there. ~~~~~ Last Wednesday, Secretary Kerry appeared undaunted, saying the Islamist radicals pose an opportunity for the world, or most of it, to unite. "It's an opportunity to prove that we have the ability to come together, that our capacities for defense are not so frozen in an old model that we can't respond to something like ISIL, that we can't pull ourselves together and affect the coalition of clearly the willing and the capable to be able to deal with ISIL," he said at the NATO summit. Further, perhaps trying to soften up the Arab leaders who have fond memories of Secretary of State James Baker, Kerry paid tribute to Baker, who signed up 33 countries to join the United States in taking action against Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait in the first major post-Cold War conflict in 1991. "His work to build a global coalition to confront Saddam Hussein ahead of Operation Desert Storm to this very day is the gold standard by which modern coalition building is judged and which I will personally use as I go out in the next days to work on the ISIL issue," Kerry said. "Everybody can do something," according to Kerry who, along with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, has already met with "core coalition" members Britain, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark. But, if Kerry is hoping that invoking James Baker and Desert Storm can make his Obama Iraq coalition fall into place, he is mistaken because he faces several bottlenecks that his boss, President Obama, has placed on his path. First, Baker's 1991 coalition was such a success because he managed to enlist Syria, a country that the Obama administration now blames for the growth of the extremists and has no interest in seeing as a coalition member. "The enemy of your enemy is not your friend," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday. "We continue to believe that (Syrian President Bashar) Assad has lost his legitimacy." So, the US is providing military support to the Iraqi government to fight ISIS, but has no interest in working with al-Assad who holds the key to eliminating ISIS in its home, Syria. Second, Iran is supporting al-Assad, whom the US wants ousted, so US officials say Iran is not welcome in the coalition and insist they are not coordinating any anti-ISIS action with Teheran. But, Iran must be included in any effort to defeat ISIS, which is a threat to it in Iraq-Iran border areas. The Iranian foreign minister recently said that ISIS militants are trying to enter Iran through its Iranian Kurdistan region, although he added that no incursion has actually occurred. And most media have reported that Iran has supplied weapons and ammunition to the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga army to help it fight ISIS, something that has increased as a consequence of Obama's reluctance to supply to the Peshmerga what they need to defeat ISIS in northern Iraq. Some Arab analysts are urging Obama not to drive the Kurds into the Iranian camp. And third, there is Russia. Another tricky proposition. Russian separatists are now fighting in Ukraine. US officials have been careful about any approaches to Moscow, which last week said it was fully behind Obama's plan to convene and chair a United Nations Security Council meeting later this month on the issue of ISIS and foreign fighters. But, Russia was absent from Baker and President George H.W. Bush's Gulf War coalition, opposed Clinton's NATO air strikes on Serbia and President George W. Bush's Iraq War. However, it did give a nod to US-led military action in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States and counted itself a member of the coalition that was then known as the "global war on terror." And, while NATO can provide a buffer for Obama against Russia in the Ukraine, there is no buffer in the Middle East. Russia has long been al-Assad's main support, both as an arms supplier and as a blocking card at the UN Security Council. And with Iran, Russia forms the backbone of opposition to Saudi Arabia, the leader of the moderate sunni Middle East alliance. So any Obama Iraq anti-ISIS coalition will have to deal with Russia, whether as a coalition member or as an interested third party. ~~~~~ Dear readers, Secretaries Kerry and Hagel have their work cut out for them. And if Kerry's botched job in the recent fairly clearcut Hamas-Israel conflict is any indication, we should not expect much from him. It remains to be seen if Hagel can forge a military coalition. But, he takes orders from a President who refuses to deal with Syria, Iran or Russia - three major regional players - and who wants no US boots on the ground. Even James Baker may have had problems making such a coalition come together or work.