President Obama has now made it clear that the United States, and consequently Australia, will take military action against ISIL forces in Iraq and Syria. His decision has been applauded. But it should give us pause that this is the outcome desired and provoked by ISIL itself.
The goals of military action are unexceptionable. There is nothing to be said for the totalitarian regime that ISIL wishes to create in the Middle East or for the brutal ways in which it wishes to impose it. It should be checked. The difficulty is with the means. The limited United States action in defence of threatened people in one region of Iraq was a legitimate means to a modest goal. The crushing of ISIL across borders is a much more ambitious goal subject to rhetorical inflation.
President Obama has recognised the only way in which the United States forces can effectively work against ISIL is in coordination with local partners. He did not identify the partners with whom he would work. History suggests that the devil will be in the detail.
It is chastening to think back over the partners with whom the United States has previously chosen to work. They include the nascent Taliban in the resistance to the Russian forces in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussain in the marshes war against Iran, assorted warlords against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and a Shiite regime in Iraq whose partisan brutality has garnered support for ISIL. Each of these partners welcomed United States support and used it for its own ends. Each alliance spawned the next crisis and the next military action against former allies.
Why would one expect it to be different on this occasion? The Iraqi Government can be expected to take part. It is mistrusted as a Government for and by Shiites by Sunni and Kurds. Already much of the support for ISIL comes from Sunni groups alienated from the Iraqi government. Iraqi partnership with the United States might be expected to strengthen the support for ISIL, as indeed seems to be the calculation behind the executions of United States citizens.
Other partnerships are also problematic. Military support for the Kurds in Iraq will inevitably concern Turkey and Iran. President Assad of Syria has been excluded as a partner. The forces opposed to him are fragmented, each supported by other nations in the region which are hostile to one another. Each will be happy to use United