New Wars

Once the air power was consolidated into a coalition, it became the biggest since the Persian Gulf War of 2003. The coalition is led by the United States with the direct participation of France, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan.

They implemented the airstrikes following the convergent axes of the Second American Fleet task forces that were deployed in the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and from the bases of coalition countries in the Middle East. They utilized bombers, attack and multipurpose planes, drones and Tomahawk missiles, including for the first time, the F-22 Raptor fighter planes of aerial superiority. Other European countries supported the decision to attack, and one week later the U.K. incorporated itself into the Unified Command.

To degrade and, if necessary, eliminate the intended Islamic State — this was posed as a political objective by President Obama within a geopolitical concept that looks to counterbalance the forces of Iraq, the pesh merga of Kurdistan, and the moderate rebel resistance of Syria, so that they achieve for themselves the re-establishment of regional equilibrium. At the same time, they are trying to protect 2 million displaced persons and refugees from countries in the region and the Arab states. What has motivated the protest against the attack on Syrian territory, a part of the 120,000 kilometers that the Islamic State group controls, is centered on Resolution 270 of the U.N. Security Council, which does not specifically determine the authorization of military intervention. The U.N. did not explicitly authorize the intervention, despite having additional faculties like Resolution 60 of the U.N. World Summit of 2005, known as R2P (Responsibility to Protect), through which the sovereignty not only protects the states from external interference, but establishes responsibility to respond for the well-being of the population, giving the international community the authority to intervene in countries that commit war crimes and crimes against humanity under the cover of sovereignty.

An offensive extremist jihad that carries threats of new wars with irregular groups that challenge the states and the international community, one that tries to return to a universal caliphate imposed on the Muslim world — that is how Elie Tenenbaum describes it in the book “Nouvelles Guerres,” recently published in Paris.* That is why it is a priority to cut finances obtained from the usurped refineries in Iraq, to urgently stop the religious ethnic cleansing, to break apart the commands, and to cut the accelerated international terrorist expansion. The U.N. has acknowledged the initial warning signs and has sought out international cooperation to support the states that do not possess the conditions to protect their population and threaten regional stability.

*Editor’s note: “Nouvelles Guerres” or “New Wars.”