Building anti-Islamic State coalition could be a heavy lift

Building the broadest coalition possible to help degrade and dismantle Islamic State should be part of any plan to not just confine Islamic State but dismantle it, but given the U.S. track record in the region, it’s no easy feat.

Eleven years ago, President George W. Bush toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with little to no support from area countries. Turkey, a consistent U.S. ally, even denied the U.S. a launching base.

Obama has reacted by going to the other extreme. He has primarily focused on getting the U.S. out of the Iraq and Afghanistan and consistently has waited to act militarily until he has built a sizable coalition. Those delays have given critics plenty of fodder to charge him with being too cautious and leading from behind – and not just in the U.S.

Kori Schake, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said the U.S. lost a lot of trust with Middle East countries by focusing on drawing down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of ensuring that they could stand on their own afterward.

Just like in the late 1980s when the U.S. stopped supporting the Mujahideen after they successfully kicked out the then-Soviet Union, they saw that the “clock’s ticking and we’re going to walk away and not care about what happens” afterward.

The skepticism hasn’t stopped key Democrats on Capitol Hill from echoing the administration line that after U.S.-led airstrikes are over, only a united regional front will have the manpower and influence to permanently defeat Islamic State.

“It’s really important that the Arab and Muslim world use this situation as a turning point where they come together — when 99 percent of Muslims who hate [Islamic State] will tell their governments to come together and defeat this extremist fanatic strain of Islam,” Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who chairs the Armed Services Committee, told the Washington Examiner.

“That’s what I believe is ultimately needed … for them to clear the poison out of the body themselves,” he added.

The Obama administration has already assembled a group of mostly Western countries as an international coalition dedicated to sharing intelligence, and providing military and humanitarian resources to different extents.

But forming a regional coalition of the willing is a much heavier lift that will require Obama to overcome the reluctance of several U.S. allies in the Middle East and Arab world who long ago lost patience with Washington and it failure to intervene in Syria’s civil war.

“I think it’s almost impossible,” said Fuad Suleiman, a veteran U.S. diplomat who served in Iraq and now teaches political science at St. Mary’s College. “Considering the number of states [Obama] wants to get involved and the differences among them, he is going to have a very difficult time keeping all of these people sticking to even one small task.”

For at least two years, Sunni allies, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose citizens have reportedly channeled billions to Syrian rebels, have been calling on the U.S. to provide lethal aid to help the opposition oust Syrian President Bashar Assad from power.

Any attempt to weaken Islamic State now will only strengthen Assad’s hand at a pivotal time, and Saudi Arabia notably isn’t rushing to sign up to join forces with the U.S. against the extremist Islamic group.

Secretary of State John Kerry is in Jordan and Saudi Arabia this week to try to try to enlist them in the fight while Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel met with Turkish leaders in Ankara on Monday and found his pitch for a direct military assist — even from a NATO ally — a pretty tough sell.

Kerry on Thursday plans to attend meetings on combating the Islamic State threat in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with leaders from Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and the Gulf Cooperation Council, according to reports in Arab news outlets.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan may well come on board. After all, U.S. allies in the Middle East, especially Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have the most to lose when it comes to Islamic State advance. The extremist group’s lightning advance across northern Iraq in June was a wake up call to several capitals in the region.

The U.S. last month started launching targeted airstrikes against Islamic State in Iraq, a major turn about for Obama, who staked his foreign policy legacy on getting America out of two long wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Leaders in the Middle East will be closely watching Obama’s speech for bigger commitments to Syria. The administration already has asked Congress for $500 million to arm Syrian moderates, but U.S. officials have been far more circumspect on whether Obama will authorize airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria.

Pressed Tuesday on whether Obama will announce airstrikes in Syria, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said only that he would leave any announcement about major decision along those lines to the president.

“If he has an announcement to make about airstrikes in Syria, he will make it. I won’t make it from here,” he said.

U.S. officials also have stressed that truly defeating Islamic State will take years, not months, and have floated the notion that Obama could leave a decision on the Syria airstrike component to the next president.

“The president has made clear this is not a short-term proposition,” Earnest said Tuesday.

Iran is a particularly explosive part of a regional equation. So far, the U.S. has tried to downplay any role for Tehran. But Iran, a Shiite-majority country, has a natural interest in combating Islamic State Sunnis, and for months has had forces in Iraq fighting the group.

It’s a delicate balance for Obama. If Iran is viewed as overly or even overtly involved in a U.S.-led military campaign, it could exacerbate moderate Sunni’s tolerance of Islamic State and threaten the fledgling Iraqi government.

The Obama administration continues to draw a line at putting boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria, but if so-called moderate Syrian aren’t strong enough to beat back Islamic State, will Saudi Arabia step in with actual troops on the ground?

“If he’s asking the Saudis to stop talking and actually start doing something – that is contribute troops – that would be the most important thing to watch for,” Suleiman said. “And that will be the test – who is going to fight?”

Charles Hoskinson contributed to this report.