Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia expressed readiness to send its ground forces to Syria to fight Daesh.
Radio Sputnik discussed the issue with an expert on the Middle East and Islam, President of the Middle East Forum Daniel Pipes.
“What everyone is doing is saying that they are going to fight ISIS but the real interest is the Syrian civil war. The issue is who controls the central government. Will it continue to be the Assad regime or the Sunni rebels and the Sunni state of Saudi Arabia is interested in helping the rebels against the Iranian backed central regime. So ISIS is secondary it’s an excuse.”
“Between the Shia orientated central government, the Sunni rebels and the Kurds. I don’t see that changing.”
The expert further spoke about how the central government is doing well in fighting off the rebels and possibly it will manage to take Aleppo. Due to this progress the Saudis and even the Turks are talking about entering Syria.
“ISIS is a target, it is horrid and it must go but in fact others have other priorities hence, ISIS hasn’t been destroyed yet and it may continue for a while. Should there be an actual coalition against ISIS, it is doomed because the recent estimate shows that 25 to 30,000 fighters they are not well armed and they are taking on the combined forces of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Russia, United States, France. How can they do that?”
Kirby said that if the coalition was really against ISIS it would have gone very quickly.
“Saudi’s direct involvement in Syria will help the rebel cause. I don’t know how much though but if the Turks get involved it would help it even more.”
