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For France, an Alliance Against ISIS May Be Easier Said Than Done For France, an Alliance Against ISIS May Be Easier Said Than Done
(about 5 hours later)
PARIS — By attacking both France and Russia through terrorism, the Islamic State has consolidated minds, bringing the United States, Russia and France into a closer alliance against it. PARIS — By attacking civilian targets well beyond its territory, the Islamic State has seemingly accomplished what diplomats had failed to do. Suddenly, the international order has been scrambled, drawing the United States, Russia and France together in a possible alliance against the terrorist group.
But so far that alliance is largely aspirational, given the competing interests of the United States and Russia, and the active dislike between President Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin, analysts and diplomats said. Each of the three longtime powers now has its own reasons for wanting to destroy the Islamic State after the pitiless attacks on civilians in Paris and the downing of a Russian passenger jet carrying vacationers. President Obama has provided intelligence to facilitate French airstrikes and suggested he was open to more cooperation with Russia.
Mr. Putin and Mr. Obama disagree on much: Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its meddling in eastern Ukraine, its efforts to demonize Washington and undermine confidence in NATO’s commitment to collective defense and its support for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. But so far, that alliance remains largely theoretical. Even as President François Hollande of France takes on the role of bridge builder with back-to-back trips next week to Washington and Moscow, powerful centrifugal forces are still pulling the would-be partners apart as competing national interests challenge efforts to translate that newly shared aspiration into a sustained collaboration over time.
But at recent diplomatic meetings in Austria, Turkey and now at a Asia-Pacific summit meeting in Manila, Mr. Obama has had what he called “repeated discussions” with Mr. Putin about the possibility of the Russian and American militaries actually working together to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Mr. Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin harbor fundamental disagreements over a host of issues that have not been dissolved by the Paris attacks. Dividing them are the Russian annexation of Crimea and its meddling in eastern Ukraine, Moscow’s efforts to demonize Washington and undermine confidence in NATO’s commitment to collective defense, and the Kremlin’s support of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
On Wednesday in Manila, Mr. Obama said Russia had been “a constructive partner” in talks in Vienna last week to draw a road map for a cease-fire in Syria. But for further cooperation to take place, he said, Mr. Putin must first direct more firepower at the Islamic State and less at the Syrian rebels that the United States supports. “It’s certainly a good thing for us and a good thing for France if we have a more coordinated approach toward these airstrikes in Syria,” said Karen Donfried, a former White House adviser to Mr. Obama who is now the president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “But how committed Russia really is about taking on the Islamic State, I don’t think any of us really knows. I remain really skeptical that our interests converge here.”
“The problem has been in their initial military incursion into Syria. They have been more focused on propping up President Assad,” Mr. Obama said, adding that if Mr. Putin “shifts his focus and the focus of his military to what is the principal threat, which is ISIL, then that is what we want to see.” Strobe Talbott, the president of the Brookings Institution and a former deputy secretary of state, said any real alliance would require a seismic change in the Russians’ approach toward Syria, where they say they are trying to fight terrorism but appear more bent on preserving Mr. Assad.
Mr. Obama added, “Those differences have not prevented us at looking at how we could set up a cease-fire.” “Maybe it’s getting through to them,” Mr. Talbott said. “They keep talking about being part of a solution. But they talk the talk of being part of the solution and they walk the walk of being part of the problem.”
President François Hollande of France, is trying to show diplomatic efforts although he is under enormous pressure at home in the wake of Friday’s bloody attacks in Paris. Those attacks came only 10 months after Islamist militants attacked the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket. Just how complicated assembling such a coalition would be was underscored Wednesday when French diplomats at the United Nations began discussions with colleagues on the Security Council on a draft measure authorizing force against the Islamic State. The French ambassador, François Delattre, described it as “short, strong and focused on the fight against our common enemy.”
Sensing the edgy new rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, Mr. Hollande said Wednesday that he would travel to Washington next week to meet with Mr. Obama. He said he would then travel to Moscow to meet with Mr. Putin. Speaking only hours after a major police raid on some of the suspects in Friday’s massacre, Mr. Hollande said that France was “at war” and wanted to create “a large coalition” to act “decisively” against the Islamic State. But just as France prepared to share its measure with council diplomats, Russia floated a proposal of its own, resurrecting a draft resolution that went nowhere earlier this fall because it insisted on cooperating with the government of countries affected by terrorism — in Syria’s case, with Mr. Assad. Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador, said failing to work with the government “is definitely weakening the possibility of a joint fight against terrorists.”
But it is unlikely that Mr. Obama, who has been resisting pressure for an immediate escalation of the fight against the Islamic State, wants to move quite as decisively as Mr. Hollande, who clearly cannot act on his own but is trying to stoke more urgency in the international response to the Paris attacks and the broader threat from the Islamic State. Aides said privately that Mr. Obama was skeptical, but in meetings in Turkey, the Philippines, Austria and Paris over the last few days, he and his secretary of state, John Kerry, have held their reservations and broached the possibility of Russia and the United States working together to defeat the Islamic State.
While France sees itself at war, the way the United States did after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Hollande has been careful not to ask NATO to come to France’s defense under Article 5, which commits all members of the alliance to collective defense if any one of them is attacked. The article has only been invoked once, after Sept. 11, when NATO agreed to go after Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban in defense of the United States After meeting with Mr. Putin last weekend in Turkey, Mr. Obama said in Manila on Wednesday that Russia had been “a constructive partner” in talks in Vienna seeking a road map for a cease-fire in the Syrian civil war that has given rise to the Islamic State. But for further cooperation, he said, Mr. Putin must direct less at the Syrian rebels supported by the United States and more at the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
The French certainly know that Mr. Obama is not going to suddenly decide to put American infantry on the ground in Syria, and they are unwilling, a French diplomat said on Wednesday, to embarrass Mr. Obama, whose support they need, let alone themselves, by “asking for the impossible.” “The problem has been in their initial military incursion into Syria, they have been more focused on propping up President Assad,” Mr. Obama said. If Mr. Putin “shifts his focus and the focus of his military to what is the principal threat, which is ISIL, then that is what we want to see.”
Still, to broaden France’s diplomatic support, Mr. Hollande invoked an unusual article in the Lisbon Treaty that governs the European Union. Article 42.7 states that if a member of the European Union is the victim of “armed aggression on its territory,” other member states have an “obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power” consistent with their obligations to NATO. Mr. Hollande, under enormous pressure at home after the attacks, is trying to take the diplomatic initiative. Sensing a chance for rapprochement, he plans to travel to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Mr. Obama, and then to Moscow to meet with Mr. Putin. Mr. Hollande said on Wednesday that he wants to forge “a large coalition” to act “decisively” against the Islamic State.
Europe unanimously voted to support France, but what that support might mean is unclear. The clause does not commit any European state to military action and the sharing of intelligence is already well-developed, if not infallible. In pursuing such a coalition, Mr. Hollande was careful not to ask the NATO alliance to come to France’s defense under Article 5, which obligates members to aid one another in case of attack. That article has been invoked only once, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
But Europe was shaken badly this summer by an influx of refugees and migrants, which Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, has called “an avalanche.” As a result, Europe has slowly understood that the flow of migrant will continue unless there is a settlement of some kind in the Syrian civil war. Given Mr. Obama’s adamant resistance to putting large numbers of American ground forces in Syria or Iraq, a French diplomat said on Wednesday that Paris was unwilling to embarrass Mr. Obama by “asking for the impossible.”
No other European country has been willing to confront Islamic radicalism as France has, in Mali, in Iraq and Syria, and at home. France is the only European country bombing Islamic State targets in Syria as well as in Iraq, doing so despite lacking a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force in Syria. Instead, to broaden France’s diplomatic support, Mr. Hollande invoked an unusual article in the Lisbon Treaty governing the European Union. Article 42.7 states that if a member is subject to “armed aggression on its territory” other members have an “obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power” consistent with their obligations to NATO.
Even the British, the other main European military power, have been unwilling to strike at the Islamic State heartland in Syria. After the British alliance with the United States in the last Iraq war, when it turned out that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain has been unable to get parliamentary support for military action over Syria. Asked on Twitter why France invoked the European Union treaty and not the NATO charter, Gérard Araud, the French ambassador to Washington, wrote that one reason was “the dialogue with Russia.” The implication was that Russia is hostile toward NATO and therefore invoking the alliance’s aid might be provocative toward Moscow.
Britain has talked tough about going after the Islamic State, but unlike France, its actions have not matched its words. British defense and foreign secretaries have said they want British forces to be able to fight the Islamic State in Syria as well as in Iraq, and that it is absurd to honor a border Islamic State does not recognize. The European Union countries voted unanimously to support France, but the treaty does not commit them to military action and intelligence sharing is already well developed. No other European country has been willing to confront Islamic radicalism as the French have, at home and in Mali, Iraq and Syria.
But stung by British experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan in support of American wars, Mr. Cameron has promised to seek approval of Parliament before taking any military action in Syria. He has said that he will only press for such a vote if he has “a clear majority” in Parliament in favor. So far, he has failed to create one. Even Britain, still bruised from its participation in the Iraq invasion of 2003, has not been willing to strike inside Syria. Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to seek approval from Parliament before action in Syria and to proceed only if he has “a clear majority.” The election of Jeremy Corbyn, the new hard-left Labour Party leader, has not made that easier.
The election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party leader, who is on the far left wing of his party and has consistently taken pacifist positions, combined with Russia’s military intervention in Syria, has made it harder for Mr. Cameron. The United States, Europe and Russia have had moments since the Cold War when their interests converged. Walter Slocombe, a former under secretary of defense, recalled that the American and Russian militaries worked together in Bosnia and Kosovo. In Bosnia, he said, “it worked out O.K., but that was a different Russia and an almost totally benign environment.”
In 2013, Mr. Cameron lost a vote to authorize British military strikes on Syria alongside the United States over Mr. Assad’s use of chemical weapons. While the issue now is a different one, with the Islamic State as the target, Mr. Cameron is unwilling to take a chance at losing a second such vote. The Obama administration is suspicious that beyond bolstering Mr. Assad, Russia’s real goal in Syria is taking attention off Ukraine — in effect, trading the status quo for collaboration in the Middle East. “Are we willing to give up on Ukraine?” asked Ivo H. Daalder, Mr. Obama’s former ambassador to NATO and now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “I’m worried that we fall in this trap.”
Mr. Cameron, after the massacres in France, has said that he intends to press Parliament even harder to authorize action in Syria. But even if he finally succeeds, Britain’s role will be relatively minor. Beyond the United States, Russia and Europe, there are other players in Syria, particularly Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Mr. Kerry has worked to forge a consensus among them. But as Mr. Daalder said, “except for France and the United States, at this point no one thinks going after ISIS is the first priority.”
If Mr. Hollande is going to win his war with the Islamic State, he will have to depend on stronger action from Washington, in coordination with Moscow, and even that is unlikely to be enough. Without that, he said, “I don’t see this as a new coalition.”
In Israel on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the fight was analogous to that against the Nazis, and that ground troops would have to be used.
“You’re not going to change them, you will not win them over, you will not pacify them,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “The only way to defeat this is the way Nazism was defeated: first you defeat, then you de-Nazify; that’s the order, that’s the priority.”
Naftali Bennett, a hawkish minister in Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet, was more explicit, telling the same audience that “drones and tough words just won’t cut it.” He held up as a model Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, laying siege to Palestinian cities in the West Bank to stop suicide bombings during the second intifada, where “we went house-to-house and door-to-door to hunt down terror suspects.”
But first Western governments must make some tough commitments, Mr. Bennett said.
“The first and biggest thing is to simply make the decision — make the decision that we’re going to fight. Europe has to set the goal of winning this war,” Mr. Bennett said. “This goal has not been set yet.”