Get NATO in gear and give the U.S. the boot
PARIS — On Sunday, as the mercury headed upward and I retreated to an air-conditioned movie theater on the ChampsElysees for a short reprieve, little did I know that just one day later, a few steps outside the theater’s door, a suspected jihadi would attempt (but thankfully fail) to blow up a car rigged with explosives by ramming it into a police van.
Can NATO invoke its Article 5 principle of collective defense against itself? Those of us who live in urban centers of European nations are being subjected to terror attacks on what seems like a weekly basis. There is constant talk about the human rights of various civilian populations in the Middle East, but what about the rights of citizens of Paris or London to live without the fear of terrorism? Not only are NATO member states not doing everything they can to protect their own people from terrorism, but the actions of the U.S.-backed coalition in Syria (which includes several NATO members) are making the situation worse.
NATO’s principle of collective defense stipulates that an attack on one member is an attack on all members and can trigger a military response. When is NATO going to stand up for its own people rather than the interests of government elites?
Islamic State has sponsors and enablers that have nurtured it and now distract from its destruction. The fact that war is no longer as straightforward as it was when it was limited to rank-and-file armies commanded by generals at the service of nation-states doesn’t mean that ISIS soldiers are divorced from nationstate responsibility.
Where was NATO when Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states began funding Islamic State? Where was NATO when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was training and equipping these jihadis for war in Syria? Where was NATO when the real goal of ousting Syrian President Bashar Assad proved much tougher than expected, and millions of Syrian civilians were sent fleeing into European countries, overwhelming security and intelligence services to the point where even jihadis previously flagged by these services are now able to perpetrate attacks?
If NATO wants to make itself useful, it needs to come to the rescue of European citizens living under the threat of ISIS as a result of the continued recklessness of U.S.-led coalition forces in Syria. We in Europe cannot afford for this war to continue. NATO must take action against any country trying to leverage the fog of war for its own political and economic gains at the expense of citizens dealing with the fallout of the conflict.
There is but one enemy: ISIS. There should be just one mission: to eliminate it. There’s only one nation fighting these jihadis on its own soil: Syria. Any foreign entity fighting ISIS should therefore be coordinated with the Syrian army.
A U.S. fighter jet on Sunday shot down a Syrian warplane, claiming it had threatened a U.S. partner in this war — a group called the Syrian Democratic Forces. Oh, great — yet another group of “rebels.” The U.S. mission is supposed to be to destroy ISIS, not to cultivate and defend even more local militias.
“Over the last four weeks, the U.S. has conducted three airstrikes on pro-regime forces backed by Iran,” ABC News noted this week. If Syria has allies such as Iran and Russia that it has invited into the country to restore stability, why is the U.S. bombing Syria’s guests?
The U.S. is also a guest and ended up in Syria only as a result of mission creep that started under the humanitarian pretext of protecting Syrian citizens. Along with its allies in the Gulf, America then created the mess that has justified camping out on the couch ever since.
At what point does Syria give America and its allies an eviction notice? And at what point do the European NATO members under ISIS’ attack invoke collective defense against any nation-states — even from within NATO — that impede or distract from the primary objective of eliminating ISIS?