As ISIS continues to grow in the Middle East, those nations in the vicinity have been watching close, and gathering large amounts of intelligence on them. Yet when ISIS looks to attack Western nations like France, advance warnings from the Arab nations appear to go unheeded.
Both Iraq and Saudi Arabia reportedly provided France with warnings ahead of the Friday ISIS attacks, and a lot of other Arab nations seem to be awash in intelligence that Western nations treat with automatic suspicion.
To some extent, it’s a function of those nations’ intelligence communities being in bed with terrorist groups, though it’s not as though Western nations are unfamiliar with backing convenient terrorist movements in enemy countries.
Officials also complain that those nations haven’t always been a forthcoming with intelligence as the US and others would’ve hoped in the past, though it seems that’s a poor excuse for spurning their intelligence now that it’s on offer.
I must admit I sympathise with Western intel groups here. People giving Westerners 'intelligence' always have their own agenda. One has only to think of the way that brilliant Iranian spy, Ahmed Chalabi, succeeded in deluding the US into invading Iraq and thus completed the Ayatollahs' efforts to insert an Iranian friendly government that Reagan had spent so many lives and so much wealth to prevent. Perhaps Salah, once the US's ally in Yemen and now its opponent in alliance with the Houthis is another good example. Certainly he fingured 'Al Qaeda' supporters for the US, but how many were his personal enemies who didn't give a damn about the US (before being droned I mean)? A certain scepticism is not only desirable but inevitable, particularly about people saying 'we told you so' after the event.