What could give rise to an international coalition made up of such disparate players as the United States, France, Jordan and Saudi Arabia with cooperation from Bashar Assad’s Syria? A common fear and loathing of the so-called Islamic State, that’s what.
After months of vast conquest across Syria and Iraq, achieved through wholesale, barbaric terror — including the beheading of foreign journalists, an aid worker and, this week, a French mountain guide — the Islamic State has no friends left. Its spokesmen have threatened not only the people of the region, but Jewish and Western targets around the world.
President Obama ultimately decided that the threat ISIS posed was too much to bear. The coalition was formed, and has carried out airstrikes against terrorist targets in Syria.
So far, a Syrian-based al-Qaida cell, reportedly on the verge of attempting a large-scale attack on Western targets, has been wiped out, as have been ISIS supply lines and command-and-control centers. According to press accounts, as of midweek at least 120 jihadists had been killed.
Even at risk of mission creep, military casualties and all the many other awful side effects of war, members of the coalition and the civilized world have decided this action is worth it. What ISIS has done and has threatened to do cannot be tolerated. The world must act.
For Jews and other friends of Israel, there is more at stake in this fight. The ongoing Syrian civil war, which has claimed 200,000 lives and which gave rise to ISIS, has finally butted up against Israel’s border. Israel has experienced Syrian shelling along the Golan Heights, and just this week shot down a Syrian military jet that strayed too close to the border.
With ISIS marauders willing to hit Israel to cause maximum mayhem, this already hot war could become even hotter. Though Israel is trying to stay out of the fight, its leaders know the country could be roped in should jihadist rebels or Assad choose to test Israel.
Thus it is in Israel’s interest, not to mention that of the entire world, to stop ISIS now. America and its coalition partners have made it clear ISIS will be destroyed.
As an indicator of consensus, criticism of the military effort has been muted, with barely any of the sort of anti-war street protests we routinely see here and in European capitals. At least, so far.
We have said before that the Islamic State must be stopped by any means necessary. We now know that the United States, its coalition partners, the West and much of the Muslim world clearly agree.