Vigil held for the Jordanian pilot in South San Francisco, February, 2015. Steve Rhodes/Demotix. All rights reserved.Successes against the Islamic State in Diyala, Sinjar, and Kobane as well as the burning alive of Muath al-Kasasbeh have galvanized calls for Middle Eastern states to commit ground troops. In a recent interview, Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed his hope for a ground force comprised of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and others to take the fight to IS. However, major obstacles preclude such a scenario. The coalition’s best bet is a well-trained, well-equipped local force that benefits from coordinated coalition airstrikes and solid intelligence.
Mr. McCain’s view is certainly not isolated. Hassan Hassan, co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, told me that “boots on the ground are of course necessary,” Hassan invoked the example of the Anbar province where airstrikes have done little to stop IS from entrenching and even expanding its hold on territory. However, unlike Iraq there are no reliable local forces to coordinate with in Syria at the scale necessary. Which partly explains the call for Middle Eastern states to participate in the fight.
A very serious obstacle, however, remains in the form of the question of President Bashar al-Assad’s fate. This is a question with apparently diminished relevance for a world stunned by the nihilism of IS, never mind that Mr. Assad’s forces have displayed brutality that far supersedes IS in kind and scale. In any case, the participation of Middle Eastern forces depends in large part on which of the following two options the coalition will adopt in deciding the fate of Mr. Assad.
