The U.S. and Iran are aligned in Iraq against the
Islamic State — for now
Iranian military involvement has
dramatically increased in Iraq over the past year as Tehran has delivered
desperately needed aid to Baghdad in its fight against Islamic State militants,
say U.S., Iraqi and Iranian sources. In the eyes of Obama administration
officials, equally concerned about the rise of the brutal Islamist group,
that’s an acceptable role — for now.
Yet as U.S. troops return to a
limited mission in Iraq, American officials remain apprehensive about the
potential for renewed friction with Iran, either directly or via Iranian-backed
militias that once attacked U.S. personnel on a regular basis.
A senior Iranian cleric with close
ties to Tehran’s leadership, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss
security matters, said that since the Islamic State’s capture of much of
northern Iraq in June, Iran has sent more than 1,000 military advisers to Iraq,
as well as elite units, and has conducted airstrikes and spent more than
$1 billion on military aid.
The areas that have been liberated
from Daesh have been thanks to Iran’s advice, command, leaders and support,”
the cleric said, using the Arabic acronym for the group.
At the same time, Iraq’s Shiite-led
government is increasingly reliant on the powerful militias and a massive
Shiite volunteer force, which together may now equal the size of Iraq’s
security forces.
Although the Obama administration
says it is not coordinating directly with Iran, the two nations’ arms-length
alliance against the Islamic State is an uncomfortable reality. That’s not only because some of the militia shock troops
who have proved effective in fighting the Islamic State battled U.S. forces
during the 2003-2011 war there, but also because, in Syria, Iran continues to
support President Bashar al-Assad, whom the United States would like to see
toppled. U.S. diplomats, meanwhile, are pushing ahead with negotiations to
reach a deal on Iran’s nuclear program to prevent the country from developing a nuclear weapon.
Ali Khedery, who advised several
U.S. ambassadors in Iraq, said the tensions that fueled a U.S.-Iran
confrontation in Iraq after 2003 are masked by the shared desire to defeat the
Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
“ISIS will be defeated,” said
Khedery, who runs a strategic consulting firm in Dubai. “The problem is that
afterwards, there will still be a dozen militias, hardened by decades of battle
experience, funded by Iraqi oil, and commanded or at least strongly influenced
by [Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps]. And they will be the last ones
standing.”
While the departure of U.S. troops
in 2011 provided space for Iran to expand its influence in Iraq, Tehran’s
support for paramilitary groups has intensified since the appearance of the
Sunni militant group, which Iran’s Shiite leaders see as a serious threat to
their interests. Combat troops from the Quds Force, a unit of the Revolutionary
Guard Corps, now travel to Iraq “from time to time for specific operations with
coordination with the Kurdish and Iraqi governments,” the senior Iranian cleric
said.
Qassim Soleimani, the Quds Force
commander, has become the face of Iran’s operations in Iraq, with photos of the
commander on the front lines circulating on social media.
“He’s our friend, and we are very
proud of his friendship,” said Hadi al-Amiri, who heads the Badr Brigade, a
Shiite militia. “Anyone now who comes and helps us fight Daesh, we welcome
them. We cannot liberate the country by the Iraqi forces alone.”
James Jeffrey, a former U.S.
ambassador to Iraq, said the Obama administration may have made a mistake by
not conducting limited airstrikes after the Islamic State’s initial advance.
Iraqi officials pleaded for
assistance this summer as the militants appeared poised to overrun the Iraqi
Kurdish city of Irbil and even Baghdad, the capital. But White House officials,
frustrated by what they saw as the sectarian policies of then-Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki, insisted first on political reforms.
“The Iraqis were in desperate
straits, and the only ones who came to their rescue was Iran,” Jeffrey said.
“These guys will remember that.”
During that time, Iraqi Kurds, the
United States’ most constant ally in Iraq, accepted weapons from
Iran. “If it was Iran that was coming to
[our] aid or the United States, we needed to prevent Irbil from falling into
the hands of ISIS,” said a Kurdish official, who, like other officials, spoke
on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters.
The collapse of much of Iraq’s army
in June also provided momentum and popular support for the increasingly public
operations of Iranian-backed militias, such as the Badr Brigade, Kataib
Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, and a growing number of smaller splinter groups.
Sheik Jassim al-Saidi, a commander
with Kataib Hezbollah, said his group has more than tripled in size since June,
now boasting more than 30,000 combatants.
“Iran never left Iraq,” he said in
an interview in a house next door to his Baghdad mosque, which has turned into
a military base for militia fighters and is packed with crates of weapons.
“This very close relationship has made Iran support Iraq all they can.”
Saidi flicked through pictures on
his phone showing him visiting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
during a recent visit to Iran.
Kataib Hezbollah, designated a
terrorist organization by the United States, has received new supplies of
Ashtar and Karrar rockets from Iran in recent months, he said. The Karrar has
been used by the group only once, Saidi said, against an American base in 2011.
“It was like a thunderbolt falling from the sky on them,” he said.
American unease about the militia
resurgence intensified when U.S. officials detected a lot of chatter via
intelligence and diplomatic channels after Obama’s Sept. 10 speech, in
which he outlined his administration’s expanded strategy for countering
the Islamic State, including airstrikes and a growing
U.S. force in Iraq.
“There was a lot of
commotion . . . a lot of Shiite militant mobilization in a way that made
us very nervous,” a senior U.S. official said. U.S. diplomats worked for weeks
to allay Iranian concerns about a U.S. return to Iraq, reaching out to Iraqi
Shiite officials in order to telegraph a message to Tehran: Renewed U.S.
military involvement in Iraq would be much more limited than it was last time.
“That message we do know resonated
and got through to people all over, in Iran and elsewhere,” the official said.
As Obama deploys a force of up to
3,000 to retrain Iraqi troops, there have been no signs of hostility between
U.S. forces and Iranian advisers or Shiite militiamen. Unlike in the past, U.S.
troops will be confined to bases or headquarters and will not have direct
combat roles.
Yet the possibility for
confrontation is “something we’re constantly worried about . . . as we
flow more personnel in there,” a senior U.S. defense official said.
Reports of abuses by Shiite
militiamen have increased in recent months, raising fears that militia death
squads that helped fuel past sectarian violence are on the march.
Another U.S. official said the
militias’ combat power has come “at a steep price.”
“Various Shia militants have pursued
scorched-earth tactics, leading to the displacement of thousands of Sunni
civilians,” the official said.
American officials are also watching
to see whether Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has the political clout to
hold his unity government together and keep paramilitary forces in check.
Obama’s top advisers are betting
that the United States can help contain militia power in the long term by rebuilding a smaller,
stronger Iraqi army and backing a new national guard
that might incorporate Sunni and Shiite paramilitary fighters.
“This is the single best opportunity
we have to counter the Shia militant efforts and mitigate the influence that
Iran will have,” the senior U.S. official said.
Poster’s
comments:
1)
This
is an interesting article that makes me think some more.
2)
Is
our present Federal President, Barack Obama, a “closet” Muslim?
3)
Is
his Indonesian based Muslim faith and OK upbringing, if true, interfering with
the performance of his American duties as the American Federal President? Keep
in mind he also had an anti-British upbringing from his first Kenyan father,
too. His father died in an alcohol related auto accident in Kenya, by the way.
4)
Is
there something in the genes? His heritage is spotted at best. His mother was a
low life, and his biological father was an alcoholic. Now his Kansas
grandparents were OK. I don’t know about his Kenyan grandparents.
5)
Is
Barack Obama an immoral person who lies to the American people and even his
hired help for his own reasons? Does his hired help have their own objectives,
too? And he let’s them get away with it, too. Perhaps he is just too dumb to
even know what they are doing. After all, he does have a charlatan’s way of
speaking. I think we all know he has a very good speaking skill.
6)
I
had many Muslim employees (and some friends, too) in my past, and most were
very good God fearing and hard working people. I enjoyed backing them up, and
even promoting some of them, too. Islam has always been a good religion to me.
Of course there are some scuzz bags, too; kind of like normal.
7)
Even
some would eat pork products, like bacon, and even drink alcoholic products,
too. Of course I promised not to say so, but the time gap has been decades is
my excuse for saying so now.
8)
I
will fight those who choose to kill me or my Family and Friends in pursuit of
their own religious beliefs. Let’s take ‘em on, so to speak. And I recognize
some of us may die in the process, including me. Of course some of them will
die, too. I sure hope so.
9)
I
assume most of this theory will come out in the end, like when Barack Obama’s
Presidency ends. If it even takes a Civil War to make it happen, so be it.
10)
Who
knows what future juries will do and even decide?
11)
I
fear for my grandchildren’s fate if future politicians reinstitute the military
draft that ended almost 4 decades ago. After all, we are unilaterally
disarming, and we did not even vote on it. Now our politicians in our past did
vote on it. Now we have a “volunteer”
military, and given the equal opportunity things, I expect my granddaughters
may get drafted in this kind of possible scenario. So be it. Even if women are
not as physically strong, there are plenty of military jobs they fill in order
to serve our in Country’s military, and we need them. Not every soldier is a
gun fighter. There are other ways to kill our enemies, too.
12)
Here
we go again.
13)
Like
a Civil War, I suspect many police departments in mass will go one way, while
some may go the other way. Most police men and police women I think will go
their own individual way.
14) What do you expect with lightweights in charge?
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