Hard Power in Hard Times by Janne Haaland Matlary

Author:Janne Haaland Matlary
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Syria and Iraq, 2014–17: Americans, Russians, and the French in the Lead

When Daesh became a territorial actor with conventional weapons and started to perform their barbaric acts of executions and massacres, the US took the lead in confronting them militarily, but France was all the time a key actor.46 Russia, also the object of terrorist attack, also took a leading role in fighting terrorists in Iraq and Northern Syria.

The US continued to lead the Western coalition, despite much domestic criticism of Obama’s leadership.47 Europe beyond France and to some extent, Britain, has been reluctant to commit troops. Here the German military aid to the Iraqis can be seen as ‘repairing’ the relationship to allies in NATO. France was willing to lead in the Daesh campaign after it was attacked severely in November 2015, but Britain was conspicuous in its limited contribution. The sheer horror of the enemy’s actions and the growing terror threat in Europe made this a case where burden-sharing seemed reasonable indeed. There was not much interest in real and risky contributions. The key American ally, the British, came under fire from domestic opposition about the size of the British contribution: The prime minister is demeaning himself with a ‘flaccid’ contribution to the Daesh campaign, wrote General Sir Richard Shirreff.48 Some months later the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence came to the same conclusion: The rhetoric on the British contribution was impressive; the military contribution was not: Only one combat sortie per day, only some few troops, and it was ‘very surprising that the UK government is doing so little’.49 The Times reported on how British generals say that the government is just ‘posturing’ over Iraq, speaking very loudly, almost hysterically, but doing nothing.50 In the same article one general is quoted as saying that ‘no one takes the UK seriously anymore’.51 The Iraq involvement is ‘beyond parody’, wrote the Independent commentator Cockburn, there are no British officers on the ground, no intelligence, and no policy or strategy. The committee itself was said to be shocked by its own findings.52 In response to this the defence secretary promised ‘hundreds more troops to Iraq’.53

There was very fierce criticism of the lack of serious British involvement. It included air strikes,54 but this alone would not do much, said officers.55 The verdict among the professionals in security and defence seemed to be that ‘posturing is no substitute for foreign policy’.56 General Dannatt, former CHOD, was very critical and demanded that Britain do something to stop the massive persecution of the Yazidis and Christians in the summer of 2014. We are ‘watching in horror’,57 he said, while the prime minister was on vacation and parliament in recess. He added that ‘we know the dangers of inaction’ in a strong plea to intervene properly and quickly.58 Other calls for humanitarian intervention and counterterrorism intervention were heard—here was in fact a case where both types of security merged.59 Yet there was little willingness in terms of contributions.

Even the Holy See called for military intervention, calling it a just war.

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