Saudi initiative good, but efficacy questionable
There are alliances and then there are alliances. And this is what we must keep in mind in assessing the newest coalition being cobbled together by Saudi Arabia to fight the Islamic State. The grouping will be a 34-nation Muslim military force, headquartered in Riyadh — and this is all that we know for sure, even though almost a week has passed since the idea was announced. It is unclear if the team will put troops on the ground; the responsibilities of each member state; and even its foundational mandate.
Though defeating the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is the driving force of the initiative, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s description of the alliance as one that will tackle all terrorism in the name of Islam across the world, leaves a lot of space for interpretation. For example, will the grouping also go after Boko Haram in Nigeria or, more controversially, fight the internationally-recognised terror group Hezbollah, which is part of the national unity Government in BeirutIJ There are many such unanswered questions, and that's possibly why many of the 33 Muslim-majority nations listed as members of the grouping have responded in a lukewarm manner.
For example, Malaysia has refused military help while Indonesia, which is on the list of countries supporting the alliance but not participating, has said that it is still waiting for more details. Palestine has already distanced itself; while in lebanon, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister are in disagreement over whether their country, home to a large Christian population, is part of the coalition. Pakistan said that it didn't even know it was on the list until after the announcement. Clearly, a lot of groundwork is yet to be done . For the moment, the alliance is little more than a concept note at best.
But even if the grouping does shape up as planned by the Saudis, it will still have a lot of weaknesses. For one, most of the member states, be it Bahrain or Somalia, don't have proper fighting forces; the few that do have professional militaries, like Egypt or Nigeria, are caught up in domestic troubles of their own. In this context, it is interesting to see the Islamic nations that are not part of the grouping — Algeria (which has successfully fought the Al Qaeda) and, of course, Iran (one of the few Muslim countries that has a decent military).
The coalition, therefore, is not just an anti-terror force; it is also a definitively Sunni Muslim group. This then raises concerns about its becoming a regional force against Iran — which, by no coincidence, comes at a time when the Shia nation is regaining its footing in the international sphere. This makes sense when viewed from the viewpoint of Saudi Arabia, which is not just seeking to undercut Iran but also buy back brownie points in the West, where it has been criticised for not doing enough to clean the mess in its backyard, even as the US and its allies, which hardly face an existensial threat from the Islamic State, do all the heavy lifting.