Thirteen years after the start of the war against radical Islamism, the United States has embarked upon the mission to "degrade and ultimately destroy" the Islamic State — a transnational jihadist movement that has accomplished al Qaeda's goals of undermining Muslim regimes and re-establishing the caliphate. Fighting the Islamic State, which controls large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, will be much more difficult than combating al Qaeda's terrorism-based tactics, and this time around, Washington has said it will restrict itself to air operations. This means that the bulk of the struggle will fall to the actors within Syria and Iraq and, more important, to their patrons among the regional powers who will likely face a multidecade struggle in combating the Islamic State.
Put differently, the U.S. role will be minor and limited in scope and time frame compared to that of the four main Middle Eastern countries — Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. Any long-term balance in the region, whether peaceful or violent, is going to draw in these regional powers because of their ability to employ direct capabilities and the direct threat the Islamic State poses to their security and interests. Still, each country has different goals in reshaping the region with regard to the fight with the Islamic State and in the event of the group's defeat. Given that all main players, even the three Sunni states, disagree and compete significantly with one another, the Islamic State and other like-minded non-state actors will likely be able to endure into the foreseeable future.
Iran's Goals
For the Islamic republic, it is critical that its Shiite allies (working with the Kurds) continue to dominate Iraq and that the Alawite-led government in Syria not collapse. Toward this end, the Islamic State must be dislodged from Iraq. Iran faces a dilemma in Syria; the Islamic State must be weakened so that it cannot project power into Iraq, but it should not be eliminated because it keeps the main Sunni rebel groups from posing a threat to Bashar al Assad's regime in Damascus. Keeping the Islamic State in the mix serves Iran's objectives of keeping the rebels divided and portraying the rebellion as a jihadist enterprise which, in turn, would limit U.S. support for the rebels and deny its main regional rival, Saudi Arabia, the ability to use Syria as a launch pad for undermining Tehran's influence in Iraq and Lebanon. For this reason, while Iran is happy to see the United States strike at the Islamic State in Iraq, it is deeply concerned about any U.S. moves in Syria.
Saudi Arabia's Interests
The Saudis are in the worst position in the region. Between the Iranian/Shiite threat, the Arab Spring, the rise of republican Islamism in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State-led jihadist surge, Riyadh is in a geopolitical maelstrom. Ideally, the kingdom would like to harness the power of a virulently anti-Shiite group such as the Islamic State to topple the Syrian regime and weaken the Shia in both Iraq and Lebanon, thus forcing the Iranians back into their Persian core. The problem is that the Saudis do not control the Islamic State. Moreover, Riyadh is competing with groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda for a monopoly over the concepts of Salafism and jihad. This is why the Saudis have been putting together a coalition of Syrian rebels, many of whom are Salafist-jihadists who do not share the Islamic State's ambition to establish a caliphate and are willing to go only as far as the Saudis command them to. Saudi Arabia is thus hoping that U.S. military power will help neutralize the Islamic State and allow its proxies to take over the territories currently under the jihadist group's control. This way the transnational jihadist threat will be removed and the kingdom can make progress toward ousting al Assad.
Turkey's Stakes
Turkey is the largest Muslim military power in the region and wants to see the al Assad regime replaced by a Sunni regime that can facilitate Ankara's ambition of regaining influence in the Arab world. However, the Turks do not share the sectarian zeal of the Saudis, nor are they as vulnerable to the Iranian threat as the kingdom is. In addition, Turkey has a unique geopolitical position: Iran holds the upper hand in the two Arab states it borders — Iraq and Syria — and on both borders there are Kurdish populations that embolden Kurdish separatism within Turkish territory. Moreover, since the eruption of the sectarian war in Syria that allowed for the emergence of the Islamic State, Turkey has been coping with jihadists on both borders. Knowing that Iraq's ethno-sectarian makeup gives Iran more influence there, the Turks are more interested in U.S. military action in Syria than in Iraq. Turkey would like to see Muslim Brotherhood-type Islamists and Syrian Sunni nationalists fill the vacuum created by the U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State. However, it knows its interests will collide with those of Saudi Arabia, for whom the toppling of the al Assad regime would be a victory in its proxy war with Iran — something the Turks have no interest in. Therefore, the Turks can be expected to work with the Qataris, given their shared outlook for the region.
Qatar's Position
Doha's strategic outlook is based on two principles: It does not want to accept Saudi hegemony of the Sunni Arab world, and Qatar wants to be a regional player. Doha's main instrument to achieve these ends has been its support for the Muslim Brotherhood groups throughout the region. Qatar and Turkey are in agreement on this issue, and they more or less would support the same types of actors in Syria. That said, Qatar also has influence over Salafist-jihadist groups including al Qaeda's Syrian node, Jabhat al-Nusrah. While Qatar is not as opposed to the Iranians as the Saudis are, it wishes to see the United States destroy the Islamic State so that nationalist Islamist forces can rise in Syria and eventually enter a power-sharing arrangement with the al Assad camp.
These competing visions for a post-Islamic State Syria show the complexity of the eventual tug-of-war among these four actors. The United States might be able to help loosen the Islamic State's grip in Syria and Iraq, but it is unlikely the regional players will simply move forward and seamlessly establish a new regional order to contain the sectarian conflict.
