IS top of agenda at Nato summit
It began as an offshoot of Al-Qaeda barely 18 months ago. Now Islamic State are more successful than Al-Qaeda ever were, with over 10,000 men under their command – and a self -declared caliphate in which to fight.
The IS leader is from Iraq’s Sunni heartland but he wants Baghdad as his capital. Abu-Bakr Al Baghdadi first appeared in a mosque in Northern Iraq in early July. His message was not so much targeting the west, as the Shia or what he called “Safavids” in Iraq itself. His rallying cry was to Sunni Muslims from all over the world to join in religious battle with so called apostates.
It can be argued that the Shia, and not the West, are IS’s main enemy; but the killing of two American hostages and the threat to the life of a Briton may be intended to provoke western intervention, beyond the 120 or so US air strikes carried out so far.
The latest IS beheading video calls on America and its allies to end these attacks and “back off” . But David Cameron has made it clear that such atrocities will have what he calls the “opposite effect”.
Judging the speed of a change to British policy is difficult. Mr Cameron is preparing the public for further intervention, but he doesn’t want to get too far ahead of parliament. He is also waiting for Barack Obama to take a lead – and we understand that a formal request for Britain and others to join air strikes may be made by Mr Obama here at the Nato summit in Newport.
Obama criticism
President Obama’s been criticised for spending much of August playing golf. The game at this golf course resort will be rather more serious. Last week the President admitted he didn’t have a strategy for dealing with IS. Wales provides the backdrop for Mr Obama beginning to acquire that strategy, by talking to his allies face to face.
Aside from the option of individual countries joining American air strikes. Nato could also provide an umbrella for providing military aid to Kurdish and Iraqi forces. And I understand that a Nato training mission to Iraq is also being discussed. Mr Obama will not want to lose sight of a central tenet of his foreign policy: that it is for Iraq’s political leaders to solve Iraq’s problems, with Iraqi armed forces taking the central role.
Syria
Intervening in Syria is far more fraught, given that this would not receive the blessing of the Syrian government – and nor would such a request be made of a regime which has killed so many of its own people.
Nevertheless, the beginnings of a “coalition of the willing” will likely emerge here in Wales, perhaps more slowly than many at the receiving end of IS brutality would like. Nato members are being drawn into a conflict over two thousand miles away – though given Turkey is a member of Nato, a conflict also on Nato’s doorstep.
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