Jordan has expanded its bombing raids against Islamic State militants from Syria to neighboring Iraq, adding another dynamic to a U.S.-led multinational military operation intent on defeating the extremist group.
Arab allies Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in signing on to the U.S.-led alliance, initially agreed to attack only Islamic State militants who have been pillaging towns and staking claim to lucrative oil fields in Syria.
Islamic State threats in neighboring Iraq were left to European military personnel and other partner nations that prefer to avoid provoking Syrian President Bashar Assad by waging a war in his country without his consent. Now, with Jordan fighting in Iraq, that dynamic is shifting and bringing more dangers as coalition members and militants battle for control of territory and oil resources across a sprawling, two-nation battlefield.
Pentagon officials have described Jordan’s elevated role in the military operation, known as Operation Inherent Resolve, as “significant” and are hopeful that the country’s actions will inspire other Arab allies to increase their level of participation in attacks against the Islamic State in Iraq.
“It’s significant because they are the first Arab nation to conduct airstrikes in Iraq, which we hope will encourage other Arab nations to do the same,” a senior Pentagon official told The Washington Times.
The Embassy of Jordan in Washington did not respond to multiple queries on why the country has expanded its airstrike zone, though the decision was made shortly after the jihadi group burned to death a Jordanian pilot who crashed his fighter jet in Syria.
PHOTOS: Top 10 U.S. fighter jets
Analysts caution that the Pentagon is playing a risky game with its allies.
The Defense Department “tends to just assume that it’s good — it’s part and parcel of the strategy of assembling as big a coalition as possible, but I’m not sure that’s the right way to think about it,” said Stephen Biddle, adjunct senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. “A major U.S. interest in this conflict is to prevent the war from spreading and sucking in the neighbors and destabilizing more countries than just Syria and Iraq. And one good way to destabilize more countries is to get them drawn into larger and larger military involvement in this conflict.”
The longer the war in Iraq and Syria rages, the more likely it is to create a division in surrounding Arab countries such as Jordan, where a portion of the population supports the extremist — and at times barbaric — actions of the Islamic State, Mr. Biddle said. The Islamic State is sometimes referred to as Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, and is known for beheading hostages and brutalizing captive populations and non-Muslims.
Jordan is escalating its offensive as the coalition prepares to expand its air campaign in the months leading up to a large-scale military offensive to wrest from the Islamic State control of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, said Patrick Megahan, a military affairs research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Coalition officials said an offensive led by Iraqi government troops and Shiite militias — many with close ties to Iran — were reportedly making steady progress Monday in the assault on the central city of Tikrit, the hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein.
“Overall, this frees American and other allies’ resources to perhaps conduct more strikes,” he said.
Dempsey in the region
Fresh concerns about Jordan’s role in the coalition have sprouted just as President Obama’s top military adviser, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, is in the Middle East assessing the progress of coalition operations. Gen. Dempsey so far has visited Iraq and a French warship operating out of the Persian Gulf.
The Peace Corps is removing the last footprint of its volunteers in the Middle East by asking personnel to evacuate from Jordan.
The Peace Corps said in a statement Saturday that it would suspend its program in Jordan because of growing security concerns and ordered some 35 volunteers to leave. The Peace Corps office in the country will remain open, the statement said.
The State Department is not evacuating its personnel in the country, said department spokesman Michael Lavallee. The department has a consulate in Amman, Jordan.
“We monitor the current security situation in Jordan regularly in coordination with Jordanian officials, and we have not received any specific, credible threats against the embassy or U.S. citizens,” the spokesman said.
Jordan’s entry into the Iraq fight isn’t expected to reverse the Islamic State’s gains by itself. On his way to Iraq, Gen. Dempsey told reporters that speeding up the tempo of the operation in Iraq, such as increasing the number of bombing raids or sending more American troops to the region, would be a mistake, The Associated Press reported.
“Carpet-bombing through Iraq is not the answer,” he said.
The military operation requires “strategic patience,” Gen. Dempsey said.
Aside from airstrikes, “Jordan could provide significant contributions in intelligence,” Mr. Megahan said. “With [the Islamic State] right across the border and a large Syrian refugee population living in Jordan, that perhaps better positions Jordan, more than anyone, to collect human intelligence on what is happening in Syria. Jordanian special forces and ground forces could also be valuable if needed.”
There also is concern that Jordan may get dragged even deeper into a cultural war that is destabilizing other countries in the region. In the past few months, Islamic State supporters have sprouted up in fragile states such as Afghanistan and Libya. Last week, the terrorist group gained the support and allegiance of Boko Haram, which has members based in Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria.
“There are lots of people in Jordan who are sympathetic to [Islamic State],” Mr. Biddle said. “There are others who hate them. You could easily imagine, especially once ISIL decides it has a military reason to engage in terrorist activity in Jordan, that this war could become very divisive in Jordan over time. And the last thing we need is another — much less several more — countries with civil wars going on and in which there’s a risk of state failure and government collapse.”
• Maggie Ybarra can be reached at mybarra@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.