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Iran's Al-Quds Leader Sizes Up ISIS in Iraq
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
June 27, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Marching relentlessly toward Baghdad, Iran’s
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered Iran’s al-Quds force into Iraq to
help stop a well-funded Saudi insurgency operating under the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant for its involvement in Syria and now Iraq. While urging the U.S. to stay out of Iraq, Khamenei sees Saudi encroachment into Shiite
lands as a violation of Iran’s extended dominion under Khamenei’s master-plan to
restore the vast Persian Empire once extending from Tehran to Baghdad. When former President George W. Bush
and his VP Dick Cheney invaded Iraq March 20, 2003, they opened up the
floodgates of Saudi-funded Sunni extremism into Iraq. Whatever one says of the late Saddam
Hussein, he kept Sunni radicals out of Iraq.
With ISIS getting dangerously close to Baghdad, Khaemenei saw fit to
order in al-Quds Iranian militia.
Picking off Shiite cities and towns from the Western Syrian border to the
oil-rich Kurdish Northwest, ISIS has shown a real strategic plan to takeover
Iraq. With 64-year-old U.S.-backed
Iraqi Prime Minister unable to stop ISIS’s advance, he pleaded with Secretary of
State John Kerry for the U.S. to start bombing missions on the radical Sunni
group. Al-Quds leader of Iran
primary self-defense militia Gen. Qassim Suleiman entered Iraq to help al-Malki. Already spread thin trying to save
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, there’s little Iran can do
to stop the growing Sunni insurgency.
Since fellow Sunni Saddam was toppled by the U.S. April 12, 2003, it was
just a matter of time before Iraq’s Sunni minority conquered Baghdad. Former Baathist dead-enders in
Saddam’s regime, including his once vaunted Revolutionary Guards, have joined
forces with ISIS to get rid of al-Maliki.
Spending over $1 trillion and losing 4,800 over nearly nine years,
there’s little stomach in the U.S. to restart the Iraq War. While some conservatives on Capitol
Hill blame Obama for ending the war prematurely, the costs far outweigh any
benefits, especially the paralysis of al-Maliki’s military to repel ISIS. Ordering 300 Army green berets back
to Iraq June 21, Obama hopes to secure the U.S. Embassy and any evacuations and
to assess whether there’s any useful military role left in Iraq. Given the abysmal failure of the
al-Malki regime to defend a federal Iraq, most national security analysts see
Iraq as a lost cause. Since word of
the ISIS-Baghdad threat got real, Obama and Kerry have talked of adding more
Sunnis and Kurds to al-Maliki’s failed government. Neither Obama nor Kerry have
accepted that ISIS won’t stop with minor concessions to Baghdad.
White House officials need to meet leaders from both parties and the
Pentagon to figure out how to proceed.
If there’s a consensus that the U.S. government can’t restart the Iraq
War, then there needs to be some talk of what to do with the Kurds. With ISIS tormenting the Kurdish
city of Mosul, it would only makes sense to help the Kurds reestablish control
over Mosul. Kerry expressed concern
that any U.S. intervention would cause a “flashpoint,” worsening tensions
between Sunnis and Shiites.
Whatever happens to the Sunni-Shiite conflict, strengthening the Kurds only
makes sense for U.S. national security. Senior members of Israel’s foreign
policy establishment, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, see the
Kurds as an essential peace partner and stabilizing force in the region. Kerry’s worry that U.S. intervention might worsen sectarian divisions is overblown.
Without diplomatic relations, it’s difficult for the U.S. and Iran to
coordinate on anything related to Iraq’s security. Iran has a very different agenda
from the U.S. to gain a more strategic foothold in Iraq to expand the Persian
Empire across the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
U.S. concerns have more to do with the link—if any—between Iraq’s Sunni
insurgents and possible terrorist attacks on global U.S. interests or on
American soil. When Obama traded May 31 five senior Guantanamo Bay Taliban prisoners for 28-year-old POW
Bowe Bergdahl, there were cries from conservative that he compromised U.S.
national security. When you
consider the Taliban never attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, it’s a stretch
to finger aging Taliban prisoners held for years at Guantanamo Bay as a threat
to U.S. national security. It’s
also a stretch to link U.S. national security to what happens in Baghdad.
Obama and Kerry need to urgently figure out what they’re prepared to do
to prevent Baghdad from turning into another Saigon. When the U.S. cut and ran from
Saigon in 1975, it was utter chaos watching hoards of U.S. and South Vietnamese
soldiers and civilians scrambling in all directions. “The solution to Iraq’s security
challenge does not involve militias of the murderous Assad regime, but the
strengthening of the Iraqi security force to combat threats,” said Bernadette
Meehan, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, repeating the same
nonsense as Obama and Kerry. Both know that if al-Maliki couldn’t tighten his security personnel in nine years,
there’s little hope for the future.
After practically booting the U.S. off Iraqi soil in 2011, it’s unrealistic to
expect the U.S. to restart the war. Only
a careful analysis can help the White House to know what to do next.
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