Ignoring it will only allow it to fester and grow much more dangerous and lethal
Flawed U.S. Iran Policy breeds backing for Islamic State
Hudson Institute scholar Michael Doran's February 2, 2015 essay "
Obama's Secret Iran Strategy" demonstrates that a very flawed U.S. policy towards Iran actually helped breed Sunni backing for the radical
Islamic State. Due to what former Senior Director at the National Security Council Elliott Abrams terms Obama's
"ideology" the administration not only
failed to comprehend Iranian culture and the absolutist theological nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran--a blunder already begun in the Carter White House and perpetuated through all subsequent administrations--but also compounded the error by believing that the
mullah regime could be enticed to moderate its
behavior.
A year after the implementation of the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action we find Majlis Speaker of Parliament hard-liner
Ali Larijani threatening that Iran may violate the JCPOA with a new
startup of nuclear enrichment if any new sanctions are employed against Iran for its alleged nuclear activities, or those which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticized in his
report concerning
ballistic missile tests. So too, the
BfV, Germany's domestic security apparatus, indicates that Iran has attempted to buy
illegal nuclear technology since last year's deal. Additionally, a recent
report indicates that Iran has stepped-up its cyberwar capabilities against the West. Thus, it's clear that the White House's supposition that Iran would begin to
change its behavior has
proven erroneous. In reality,
Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has
not changed his
opposition to the United States one iota. Indeed, the monies Iran has reaped from the deal have not been funneled to improve the Iranian economy but instead have found their way to
increased Iranian support for the Syrian regime of Bashar el-Assad and its various
terrorist proxies--particularly
Hezbollah--in Lebanon, Iraq,
Yemen, Bahrain, and Gaza.
Having pulled all US troops out of Iraq
without stabilizing the situation between the warring Sunni and Shia populations, the administration not only allowed Iran to continue to support and fund the most
radical Shia factions and
their militias but also gave the radical
Dawa party's Prime Minister
Nouri Kamal al-Maliki the chance to suppress the Sunni minority. The result of allowing
al-Maliki to continue his
sectarian oppression of the Sunnis was to cause a large portion of
Sunnis to become radicalized and support the formation of the
Islamic State, particularly among former Baathist army officers and officials. As
Iran's radical Shia agenda became more prevalent in Iraq, leading both the Tehran-led
Badr Organization militia and other
Shia militias such as
Asaib Ahl al Haq, or "League of the Righteous" to attack and assassinate Sunnis, particularly those that had any ties to the Saddam regime, the Sunnis
reacted, and thus
ISIS/the Islamic State found a steady supply of local recruits.
For the United States to win the war against the Islamic State, it is necessary not only to destroy it physically, but also to reverse the conditions that made it popular with a good portion of the Sunni masses. Unfortunately, the
U.S. is relying on Iraq's Shia
Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) which too often
commit atrocities against the
fragmented Sunni minority.
As long as the
current policy of relying on the Shia PMUs in its fight with Islamic State, the U.S. will fail to tame Iraq and arrest the sectarian wars. The PMUs are--
in essence--
Iranian proxies as their battlefield leadership is poignantly demonstrated by the presence of Major General
Qassem Soleimani, commander of the
Qods Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (
IRGC/Pasdaran), in Iraq at
Takrit and
Fallujah during the battles there. Soleimani not only advises but actually directs the battles and is
aided by his own Qods Force troops as well as Shiite
Fatemiyoun recruits from
Afghanistan and Pakistan that have been employed to bolster
Hezbollah in Syria.
Accountability and strict discipline need to be enforced in American relations with Iraq. "Leading from behind" will not do in any manner whatsoever--that's an open invitation to the Islamic State to morph into another terrorist entity. Boots on the ground and officials in Baghdad to enforce
strict compliance with a non-sectarian agenda will be required. With careful instruction and guidance we succeeded in the "
Tribal Awakening" of 2006-2007 and the "
Surge" of 2007-2008; future success requires similar diligence on our part along with that of the Government of Iraq. But this time we need to stay the course and not retreat from the arena until Iraq is at peace with itself. Given the right support the GOI will opt for a successful
harmonious state. But with the long history of mutual Sunni-Shia animosity and the ferocity of both sides in attacking the other, it will not be simple or quickly achieved. However, if we withhold our support and supervision, Iraq will not achieve peace and will continue to be a weak client of Iran whose
malevolent agenda is all too well known from the past thirteen years of experience.
Across the border in Syria, the situation is somewhat more complicated. The
"moderate" opposition --thought by the U.S. to be concentrated in the Syrian Free Army (SFA) has recently allied itself with
jihadist militias fighting the Assad regime, especially in the
current battle over Aleppo. Although the
al-Qaeda affiliate
Jabhat al-Nusra, led by
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, has split recently from
al-Qaeda in order to form
Jabhat Fatah el al-Sham as an
umbrella organization of all non-Islamic State Sunni opposition to the Assad regime, the
jihadi agenda it espouses has
not changed at all. Like Islamic State,
Jabhat Fatah el al-Sham seeks to remove the Assad regime and replace it with a Sunni Islamic state.
The only Syrian group working actively against Islamic State in Syria is the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces which recently
took the city of Manbij from IS after a
two-month siege. This Kurdish dominated coalition is made up of the Syrian
YPG and a
variety of Arab minorities.
Success against the Islamic State both in Iraq and in Syria is hampered by our reliance on Iran's Shiite axis in Iraq while attempting to remove Iran's client in Syria. Our "
friends" in these complicated fights do not share our values nor do they have similar goals and objectives for final outcomes. Until we realize that every coalition action that we take has multiple repercussions because of our
"allies" all-too-frequent
misdeeds, we will continue to fail to bring any sense of calm to the area. As mentioned above, "
leading from behind" is a guarantee of failure. Success will require tremendous effort, diligence and hands-on supervision in order to prevent sectarian violence against civilians, minorities, and the less devout. And this problem will not be solved quickly no matter how much we wish it. But
ignoring it will only allow it to fester and grow much more
dangerous and lethal.
Rabbi Dr. Daniel M. Zucker -- Bio and
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Rabbi Dr. Daniel M. Zucker, currently rabbi and education director of Congregation Hesed shel Emet in Pottstown.
Rabbi Zucker’s areas of political expertise include: the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS=VEVAK), the Iranian opposition (MEK/NCRI), Iran, Iraq, and Israel. His Judaic specialties include Bible and Biblical, Hellenistic, and Rabbinic history and archaeology, Sephardic and Ethiopian Jewries, and Jewish Education. He is the author of over ninety published articles on the Middle-East.