If GWOT is Authentic Where are the Economic Sanctions on the Gulf Sheikhdoms?

After a year spent where the United States ignored and downplayed the existence of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, choosing instead to focus on the officially demonized figures of Bashar al-Assad and Nouri al-Malaki, suddenly the uber-jihadi group is front and center. Islamic State's threat to oil-rich and pro-American Kurdistan, followed by its decapitation video of freelance journalist James Foley, has put the Global War on Terror (GWOT) back in the limelight and made the caliphate Public Enemy No. 1.

At this point the public must be feeling whipsawed. First, despite more than a decade of programming regarding the evils of Islamic fundamentalism, people were asked to ignore Western collaboration with jihadis in order to accomplish the collapse of the Syrian government; now we are being told to be afraid, very afraid.

So it is prudent to be skeptical. Questions are being asked about the authenticity of the Foley beheading. And even today's Gray Lady editorial, "A Necessary Response to ISIS," mentions the support given to Islamic State by of our closest allies in the Gulf:

The prospects of defeating ISIS would be greatly improved if other Muslim nations could see ISIS for the threat it is. But, like Iraq, they are mired in petty competitions and Sunni-Shiite religious divisions and many have their own relations with extremists of one kind or another. ISIS has received financing from donors in Kuwait and Qatar. Saudi Arabia funneled weapons to Syrian rebels and didn’t care if they went to ISIS. Turkey allowed ISIS fighters and weapons to flow across porous borders. All of that has to stop.

Creating a regional military force may be required, including assistance from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Turkey. It certainly will require money, intelligence-sharing, diplomatic cooperation and a determined plan to cut off financing to ISIS and the flow of ISIS fighters between states. France’s suggestion for an international conference deserves consideration. 

No matter how many American airstrikes are carried out — Mr. Obama is also considering strikes against ISIS in Syria — such extremists will never be defeated if Muslims themselves don’t make it a priority. To their credit, some leaders are speaking out. Among them is Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority, the grand mufti, who called ISIS and Al Qaeda the “enemy No. 1 of Islam.” 

But they must go further and begin a serious discussion about the dangers of radical Islam and how ISIS’s perversion of one of the world’s great religions can be reversed.

Kuwait and Qatar come in for more unwelcome attention in Rukimini Callimachi's "U.S. Writer Held by Qaeda Affiliate in Syria Is Freed After Nearly 2 Years: Peter Theo Curtis, Abducted in 2012, Is Released by Nusra Front":

Ghanim al-Mteiri, a sheikh from Kuwait, approached an employee of The New York Times with a photograph of Mr. Curtis in captivity, and The Times arranged for the image to be sent to the Curtis family. The sheikh, a known fund-raiser for jihadi groups, said he could organize Mr. Curtis’s release, and Ms. Curtis agreed that same month to fly to Istanbul, meeting twice with the shadowy figure, who insisted on seeing her at night, relatives said.

He proposed a complicated prisoner swap, offering to release Mr. Curtis if his mother arranged for the government of Iraq to free two women — both wives of jihadists — held in prisons there. The proposal went nowhere.

***
American experts on ISIS and Middle East politics suggested that Qatar, which has supported some militant Islamic extremist groups in the past but is an important American ally, moved more aggressively to help secure Mr. Curtis’s freedom after Mr. Foley was killed, partly to emphatically send a message that it opposes groups like ISIS. 

“I think what we’re seeing is a shift as the result of the Foley beheading,” said Rick Brennan, senior political scientists at the RAND Corporation. “Qatar has an interest in making certain it is seen as an ally in the war on terror. And beheading Americans or Westerners is not in Qatar’s interest."

The question of whether the sudden efflorescence of GWOT is contrived or authentic is important. If it is truly authentic, then why not sanction the countries known to support Islamic State? Look at all the effort expended to isolate Russia. Why not something approaching a fraction of that effort directed at Qatar and Kuwait? The behemoth, Saudi Arabia, could be spared for now, the message being, "You're next."

But we all know this is a fantasy. The Gulf monarchies are stakeholders in USG; they have representatives in the U.S. Congress. There will be no sanctions. The Great Game will continue as it has in Afghanistan. The West, with its unrivaled air power, will blow up the "bad guys" -- along with a lot of innocent people -- yet jihad will spread.  Perpetual war. That is what we have in store.