For France, an alliance against ISIS is easier said than done.

Hollande to meet with both leaders to build coalition

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.

But so far that alliance is largely aspirational, given the competing interests of the United States and Russia, and the active dislike between President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin, analysts and diplomats said.

Putin and Obama disagree on much: Russia’s 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, Moscow’s support for the Syrian president, Bashar Assad.

But at recent diplomatic meetings in Austria, Turkey and now at an AsiaPacific summit meeting in Manila, Philippines, Obama has had what he called “repeated discussions” with Putin about the possibility of the Russian and American militaries actually working together to defeat the Islamic State.

On Wednesday in Manila, 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, Putin must first direct more firepower at the Islamic State and less at the Syrian rebels whom the U.S. supports.

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.

Sensing the edgy new rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, Hollande said Wednesday that he would travel to Washington next week to meet with Obama. He said he would then travel to Moscow to meet with Putin. Speaking only hours after a major police raid on some of the suspects in Friday’s massacre, Hollande said that France was “at war” and wanted to create “a large coalition” to act “decisively” against the Islamic State.

Naftali Bennett, a hawkish minister in Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet, said that the first thing Western governments must do is make some tough commitments.

“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,” Bennett said. “This goal has not been set yet.”