A Coalition of Ten?

In a well-researched article, the New York Times traces the problems that President Obama has bought upon himself in his decision to initiate his non-war on ISIS. In particular, during his televised statement on 9/10/14, he stated that he was forming a large coalition in this effort. Already Great Britain and Germany have publicly declined to participate and this article also details his dearth of support in the Arab world … maybe not Egypt, maybe not Jordan, maybe not Lebanon, not Turkey, not Syria, maybe Saudi Arabia, and Iran is probably excluded from consideration. Yes, I suspect that a few of smaller emirates might be bribed into signing up (among Qatar, Kuwait, Dubai, Oman, UAE, and Bahrain) and maybe even the Vatican City, Liechtenstein, and Monaco, but real coalition partners might be difficult to corral. 

Poor lonely John Kerry … traveling the world in search of real coalition partners. (I realize that this is pretty petty criticism of Obama, but then this is the same type of pooh-poohing that George W. Bush suffered when he put together 46 nations into the Coalition of the Willing in Operation Iraqi Freedom.)

This article also briefly tries to decode the complex animosities between the Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam and how this rift complicates the problem of America’s dealing with this dire ISIS threat. It is too easy for America to appear to favor one or another of these sects. (I personally believe that Obama’s heart is with the Shiites … and this is why he abandoned Iraq to President Maliki and his thugs … giving rise to the current ISIS problem.) And lastly this article takes an oblique swipe at Obama’s empty claim in his TV address ... with a revealing graph which shows the ten-year trend of U.S. drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia relative to Pakistan. Clearly President Obama was then guilty of a bit of rhetoric bluster.

Anyhow, read the article for yourself. It is the kind of pure journalism of which the New York Times used to be famous … see: NY Times Article .

Afterthought: For more analysis on this problem see: CS Monitor Story.