Islamist Wave 2014 - News & Discussion

10 posts

Angocachi
There are Sunni veterans of Saddam's disbanded military in ISIS ranks because ISIS recruited every Sunni male between Baghdad and Homs who'd fight Shia but there is no Baathist command in Iraq. There is however a sizeable minority of old style secularist Sunnis who are ashamed to admit it took Salafis to burn the Shia out and want to pretend some residue of Saddam is responsible... responsible for such 'reports'. When the rebels start hanging al Duris portrait rather than the Black Banner we can say there are Baathists. At this moment ISIS has an effective monoply on the Sunni Insurgency and intends to do the same on Syria shortly... Lebanon and Jordan in a couple years Saud in a decade.
MadScienceType

It'd be cool if they started in Riyadh. I'd like to see the ISIS dudes driving around in some prince's looted Ferrari with the former owner's head stuck on the radio antenna.

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Schmeisser
That is total bs. I followed this entire operation to take Mosul from the beginning with the feint on Samarra thru ISIS tweeps. It was entirely an ISIS military operation. I was talking to people about the op and looking at the first images of the Sykes-Picot border being smashed before it made the news. I watched even as the entire world gradually woke up about what just happened. Anyone else trying to take the credit off of the soldiers of ISIS is just a hyena or a person in denial for some reason.

I wouldn't even call it an ISIS-led insurgency. I'd say it's ISIS army-led and spearheaded operations.
Schmeisser
Many of ISIS leadership were commanders in Saddam's army and Fedayeen. Most were never Baathists tho and all have "repented" and became Islamists.
Angocachi
America and the UK might get promises from Tehran...

- to forgo nuclear weapons

- to never support Palestinian groups Israel disapproves of; Islamic Jihad and Hamas

- to never support Shia dissidents in the GCC; Houthi, Qatif, Bahrain

- to keep Hezbollah pacified

- to sign contracts with Anglo-American energy and defense firms and to have Baghdad do likewise

- to cooperate with Turkey against Kurdish separatists

- to cooperate with Karzai against the Taliban

- to cooperate with the UK & US against Al Qaeda and ISIS

- to force Assad to accept some demand



In return Iran might get a promise from the UK and US

- to lift all sanctions

- to forgo any military strike on Syria and Iran

- to force the GCC into some compromise with its Shia populations

- to force Israel into some compromise with Palestine and a promise not to attack Hezbollah, Assad, or Iran

- to stop backing dissidents and rebels in Syria and Iran



In the end, Iran and its lesser allies are pulled from the Moscow camp and toward the Anglo-American sphere to serve in the roll Iran held before the 1979 revolution (why I say the current regime is traitorous). It will be to America Egypt and Saudi Arabia combined; buying Anglo-American weapons, paying Anglo-American firms to handle its oil and gas, protecting Israel and completing the encirclement of Russia. If they go down this farther down this road, as they are going now, Iran will have a military coup backed/ordered by the conservatives and zealous to save the '79 Revolution from the men who would be Persia's Mubaraks.

US could allow Iran sanctions to expire in 2016

Author: Barbara Slavin Posted June 16, 2014

As nuclear negotiations resume June 16 in Vienna, a new paper by a veteran US Iran expert and congressional analyst lays out options for unwinding US sanctions that include initial waivers by President Barack Obama and the 2016 expiration of a key piece of legislation that has impeded foreign investment in Iran’s energy sector.
Summary According to a top expert on US sanctions against Iran, President Barack Obama can provide significant relief by waiving many penalties and allowing a major piece of sanctions legislation to “sunset” before he leaves office.


According to the paper , written by Kenneth Katzman and slated to be presented at an Atlantic Council event along with a companion report on lifting European sanctions , the Obama administration “might decide to allow the Iran Sanctions Act to sunset” when it expires on Dec. 31, 2016, shortly before Obama leaves office. Expiration of the act “would reopen Iran’s energy sector to unimpeded foreign investment and would enable Iran to begin expanding oil and gas production again after many years of stagnation,” notes Katzman, writing in his personal capacity and not on behalf of his employer, the Congressional Research Service. He adds that Congress could vote to extend the act, as it has repeatedly done since the law was first passed in 1996, but the president could exercise his veto authority.

The issue of sanctions relief is a key element in what both US and Iranian negotiators have called a Rubik’s Cube in an attempt to describe the complexity of fitting together verifiable curbs on the Iranian nuclear program with a phased removal of penalties that have crippled the Iranian economy . Katzman's paper could provide a road map both feasible for the White House and acceptable to Iran, whose negotiators have indicated that they do not expect quick action by Congress to repeal sanctions legislation.

Since the 1979 hostage crisis, but especially in the last few years, Iran has been the target of a plethora of US and European penalties. US sanctions include 10 statutes and 26 executive orders alone. Iran has also been penalized in four resolutions by the UN Security Council.

Still, the White House has considerable flexibility in how to apply the US restrictions, especially when it comes to so-called secondary sanctions on foreign entities. The president can revoke or amend executive orders that have not been codified, such as sanctions on companies that purchase petrochemicals from Iran. The president can also waive requirements under the fiscal year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that have obliged foreign buyers of Iranian oil to significantly reduce their purchases of crude in the past few years. These sanctions have already been eased under the interim nuclear accord Iran signed last fall with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1). The act allows the president to waive sanctions for 120 days and to continue to do so for an unlimited number of 120-day periods, by certifying to Congress that “such a waiver is in the national security interest of the United States.”
Sanctions on foreign banks that do business with sanctioned Iranian banks — part of another piece of pivotal legislation, the 2010 Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act (CISADA) — can also be waived indefinitely if the secretary of the Treasury says that it is in the US national interest and submits a report to the appropriate congressional committees. Without repeal of CISADA, however, many European banks may still be leery of dealing with Iranian financial institutions given the heavy fines imposed on several banks for doing business with Iran in the past.

Even if some of the options outlined by Katzman become part of a long-term deal with Iran, the Islamic Republic will still face sanctions linked to its spot on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism and its human rights abuses. Most of these laws, however, also include presidential waiver authority.

European sanctions relief is less complicated bureaucratically but intricately tied to American action on sanctions, according to Cornelius Adebahr, an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he runs the endowment’s Europe program. As Adebahr notes in his report on European sanctions, “Both the imposition of sanctions and their removal require merely one ingredient: the political will of member states.” If the 28 members of the European Union vote to suspend or lift sanctions, that is enough: “The EU’s foreign policy executive does not have to deal with a Congress.”

Adebahr continues, however, “It is crucial that any sanctions relief be synchronized between the EU and the US” because of the way in which the penalties are intertwined and have reinforced each other. Thus it would not be sufficient for the EU to lift its sanctions and expect European companies to resume business with Iran “as long as the specter of liability looms over their activities in America.”

Adebahr suggests that the focus for sanctions relief in a long-term deal be on four specific areas:
  • Allowing foreign countries to import Iranian oil and gas freely.
  • Unfreezing the estimated $100 billion in Iranian oil revenues currently sitting in foreign banks.
  • Easing restrictions on financial transactions with Iran, insurance and the civilian economy, including the automotive and shipbuilding industries.
  • Delisting a number of Iranians currently on travel ban lists.
Many European sanctions that also have US equivalents are likely to remain in place, namely, the ban on supplying Iran with any technology that could be used in a nuclear or other weapons program, an arms embargo, inspections of cargo and restrictions on dealings with businesses connected to the Revolutionary Guards.

The reports do not address the possibility that Congress will try to reinstate some sanctions in so-called snapback provisions should Iran be suspected of violating an agreement or impose new penalties tied to Iran’s ballistic missile program, support for anti-Israel groups or human rights abuses. Given the degree of congressional suspicion of the Islamic Republic and the influence of powerful anti-Iran lobby groups, long-term sanctions relief will require extensive consultations with Congress by the White House, scrupulous observance of any deal by Iran and a durable US-Iran diplomatic channel to resolve inevitable disputes about the nuclear deal and other issues.


Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/06/iran-sanctions-expiration-2016-penalty-legislation-obama.html#ixzz34zftuqoz




Cameron committed to 'rebuilding' relations with Iran

David Cameron has said he is committed to "rebuilding" diplomatic relations with Iran but will proceed with a "clear eye and hard head".

The UK prime minister said the reopening of the British embassy in Tehran, announced on Tuesday, was an important step in that process.

He also warned the fallout from the conflicts in Syria and Iraq were the UK's most serious security threat.

Up to 400 UK nationals are believed to be fighting with Sunni militant groups.

Full diplomatic relations with Iran were suspended after attacks on the British embassy in Iran in 2011 but UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said the "circumstances were right" for the embassy to reopen following an improvement in bilateral relations in recent months.

The move comes as Iraqi forces are engaged in heavy clashes with Sunni Islamist militants across the country and amid reports that Iran is providing military assistance to its historic rival.
'All-time low'

The election of a new Iranian president and a deal on Iran's nuclear programme has led to renewed contacts between the UK and Iran this year.

Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street after talks with Chinese premier Li Keqiang, Mr Cameron said the "appalling attack" in 2011 had brought UK-Iranian relations to an "all-time low".

But he said it was right that the two countries should engage in "greater dialogue" and seek to improve relations on a "step-by-step" basis.

The shared interest in confronting militants led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has accelerated contacts between the West and Iran.

Mr Cameron said he would have supported improved relations with Iran in any case but "what is happening in Iraq is not a reason for not taking that step".

The UK has ruled out any role in future military intervention in Iraq and Mr Cameron said it was incumbent on the Iraqi government to "pursue an inclusive process that can unite the country".

He also pledged to do everything he could to protect people from UK nationals fighting alongside Jihadi militants fighting in Iraq and Syria if they return to the UK.

"No-one should be in any doubt that what we see in Syria and now in Iraq in terms of Isis is the most serous threat to Britain's security that there is today," he said.

"The number of foreign fighters in that area, the number of foreign fighters including those from the UK who could try to return to the UK, this is a real threat to our country," he said.

"That means stopping people from going, it means arresting people who are involved in plots, it means focusing our security, our policing, our intelligence effort on to that area of the world, on to those people."

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Hague said the UK embassy would re-open "as soon as practical arrangements are made" as a sign of "increasing confidence" in the state of relations between the two countries.

The foreign secretary said he had sought assurances that British diplomatic staff would be safe and would be able to carry out their work "without hindrance".

Speaking in Parliament, Mr Hague rejected suggestions that the move amounted to a "softening" of the UK's approach towards Iran and stressed the UK wanted to see a change in its foreign policy.

Tehran must "cease support for sectarian groups across the Middle East and reach a successful conclusion to nuclear negotiations", he told MPs.

Analysis by Kasra Naji, BBC Persian
Efforts to establish normal relations between UK and Iran were stepped up last year soon after the election of President Hassan Rouhani. He had promised to mend Iran's relations with the outside world.

Iran's relations with many countries had taken a turn for the worse during the previous eight years of disastrous foreign policy adventures under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It was on his watch that angry Islamic hard-line supporters of the government attacked and ransacked British embassy buildings in Tehran in November 2011. Now the two countries are trying to put all that behind them. Both countries need each other, and it seems the need for co-operation on stopping the advance of Isis in Iraq has given the efforts to improve relations a new impetus.

Britain needs Iran to help establish a broad-based government in Iraq. But there are still unresolved problems. Iran says it will not apologise for the attack that broke all diplomatic norms, although it says it is willing to discuss paying for the damages to the buildings.

The safety of Iranian staff working for the British embassy is another issue that needs firm guarantees from the Iranian side. But for ordinary people, the reopening of the embassies cannot come soon enough.

Tens of thousands of Iranians, many of them students, live in Britain. They and their families need visas and consulate services that they are not getting at the moment.

The storming of the British embassy in 2011, in retaliation for UK support for sanctions against Tehran, was one of series of incidents in the past decade that have ratcheted up tensions between the countries.

In 2007, 14 Royal Navy sailors were detained by the Iranian authorities after they were accused of violating Iranian territorial waters.

The appointment of a UK-based British charge d'affaires to Tehran last year was seen as a sign of a thaw in relations. However, the UK government still has concerns about Iran's role in Syria, where it is supporting the government of Bashar al-Assad in its fight against rebel groups and its backing for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The US broke off diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 after 52 of its embassy staff were held hostage in Tehran.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27891624
Angocachi

Jews are frantic to shoot holes in any cooperation between the US and Iran.


One Glaring Problem With Any US Cooperation With Iran



by Armin Rosen
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Iran and the United States are reportedly discussing possible security cooperation in Iraq, where an extremist group has seized large portions of the country's north. Some members of Congress, including the usually-hawkish Lindsay Graham, seem to be on board with a greater level of U.S.-Iranian cooperation.

There is one glaring issue regarding that partnership.
If the plan comes to pass, Washington and Tehran would be working together to fight an organization whose presence Iran has tolerated on its own territory, and that it might have directly helped nurture — during a time when that group was responsible for killing thousands of Iraqis and American soldiers.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which seized the northern oil city of Mosul last week and is currently attempting to surround Baghdad, was once al-Qaeda's Iraq franchise — although disagreements over the group's ambitions and geographic reach led to a rupture between ISIS and al-Qaeda central last year. During the U.S.'s military presence in Iraq, AQI was the country's most brutal insurgency, a sectarian terrorist organization that plunged Iraq into civil war.
That war was partly between Shi'ite militants, some of which were supported by Iran, and AQI, an affiliate group of the world's leading Sunni terror organization.
And Iran was playing both sides of the conflict.
As a 2008 backgrounder from the Institute for the Study of War recounted, there were numerous incidents of U.S. military and intelligence officials alleging a connection between Iran and Sunni extremists in Iraq. In April of 2007, General William Caldwell alleged that "there has been some support provided to some Sunni extremist groups by Iranian intelligence agents, not anywhere near the degree that it's obviously being done to Shi'a extremists, but there are now some confirmations we've been able to make."
The next month, coalition forces captured "a suspected liaison to al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leaders, who assists in the movement of information and documents from al-Qaeda in Iraq leadership in Baghdad to al-Qaeda senior leaders in Iran," according to an official press release.
Also in 2007, journalist Eli Lake reported that the U.S. intelligence community had intercepted Iranian documents detailing cooperation between members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Qods Force and members of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
These efforts have paid off, according to the State Department's current explanation for Iran's classification as a state sponsor of terrorism. According to State's 2013 overview ,

Iran allowed AQ facilitators Muhsin al-Fadhli and Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and also to Syria. Al-Fadhli is a veteran AQ operative who has been active for years. Al-Fadhli began working with the Iran-based AQ facilitation network in 2009 and was later arrested by Iranian authorities. He was released in 2011 and assumed leadership of the Iran-based AQ facilitation network. ​
There are any number of reasons for an expansionist Shi'ite theocracy to support equally-expansionist Sunni extremists in the midst of a Sunni-Shi'ite civil war. As Lake explained, Iran viewed its ties to al-Qaeda as a hedge against potential blowback from the chaos in neighboring Iraq.
In the late 2000s, Tehran might also have thought that support for Sunni extremists might also have had the ancillary benefit of weakening the U.S. military or even hounding it out of the region. Iran would eventually play a major role in getting the U.S. to leave Iraq, but not through support for Sunni terrorists — instead, Iran used its active role in negotiations over Iraq's new government in 2010 to covertly secure the exit of U.S. troops from the country .
And there are higher-level strategic considerations at play. For the past year, there have been accusations that the Assad regime in Syria — an ally of Iran, whose leaders belong to the minority Alawite sect, which is associated with Shi'ism — is in a classic Baptists and bootleggers coalition with ISIS. They're enemies whose behavior nevertheless reinforces and benefits the other.
As one Western diplomat put in January in an interview with Time,
[T]here is regular contact between regime forces and al-Qaeda elements, but he is not sure that it amounts to outright collusion. “I have no doubt that there are links,” he says. “But ISIS’ indirect assistance to the regime through oil sales, and the regime’s implicit acceptance of ISIS presence in some areas, may just be a tactical alliance that allows both entities to pursue the same short term goals.” ​
And that's hardly the only evidence that Assad and ISIS are acting on an awareness of their mutual interests, as Business Insider's Michael Kelley recounted in January. Basically, Iran and its top Arab ally has tolerated the same Sunni extremist group that is now fighting Iranian-supported militias in Iraq.
The result has been a stronger Assad regime, in addition to an emerging sense that there is a confluence of U.S. and Iranian interests in Iraq.
The U.S. and Iran might end up entering into an uneasy alliance of necessity in Iraq. But the situation in the country is partly the result of Iran's success in playing both sides of the region's sectarian divide, in a way that benefits its allies, and has forced even the United States to constantly alter its strategy in the oil-rich heart of the Arab Middle East.

http://www.businessinsider.com/problem-with-a-us-iran-alliance-in-iraq-2014-6

"The US can't cooperate with Iran, Iran supported Al Qaeda" -Jew

The United States should not cooperate with Iran on Iraq

Michael Doran is a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
( Boot was born in Moscow . His parents, both Russian Jews , later emigrated from the Soviet Union to Los Angeles , where he was raised. Boot was educated at the University of California, Berkeley ( BA , History, 1991) and Yale University ( MA , Diplomatic History, 1992). He started his journalistic career writing columns for the Berkeley student newspaper The Daily Californian . He later stated that he believes he is the only conservative writer in that paper's history. Boot and his family currently live in the New York area. - Wiki)
The growing disaster in Iraq has triggered anguished debate over two fundamental questions: What went wrong? And what do we do about it?
Surprisingly, many people who disagree vehemently about the former question (in particular, whether President George W. Bush or President Obama is more to blame) agree on the latter. Thus Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) , who has consistently attacked the Obama administration for its foreign policy, suggests that the United States should work with Iran to counter the rapid advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). That idea was also advanced by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who said Monday that the administration is “ open to discussions ” with Tehran and would “ not rule out ” cooperation in Iraq.
It’s sometimes true that very different countries can cooperate against a common enemy, as the United States and Soviet Union did during World War II. But the suggestion of a united U.S.-Iran front is more reminiscent of the wishful thinking among conservatives who argued in the 1930s that Britain and the United States shared a common interest with Nazi Germany in countering communism. The idea that the United States, a nation bent on defending democracy and safeguarding stability, shares a common interest with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a revolutionary theocracy that is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism in the world, is as fanciful as the notion that Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler could work together for the good of Europe.



Angocachi
While it’s true that Iran is run by Shiite fundamentalists and ISIS is a Sunni organization, the rise of ISIS provides Tehran with multiple benefits. For one thing, it makes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Shiites of Iraq ever more dependent on Iranian protection. For another, ISIS’s frightening rise makes the United States more likely to compromise with Iran.
We have grown accustomed to Pakistan playing both arsonist and fireman at the same time — sheltering Osama bin Laden and supporting jihadist groups while winning aid from Washington by portraying itself as a partner in the war against terrorism. Iran is adept at playing a similar game, only instead of aid it is likely hoping for a further relaxation of Western sanctions and a sweeter deal on its nuclear program.
Indeed, the non-jihadist Syrian opposition insists that ISIS is a creation of Iran. In typical Middle East fashion, the Syrians overstate the case, but there is much evidence that Iran and its Syrian allies have cooperated with ISIS. Don’t forget that ISIS (then known as al-Qaeda in Iraq) was launched by the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , who, U.S. intelligence believes , received aid, shelter and financial support from Iran after he was chased out of Afghanistan by U.S. forces in 2001. Zarqawi received even more support from Iran’s close ally, Syria, which allowed its territory to be used to supply al-Qaeda in Iraq with a steady stream of foreign fighters.
As recently as 2012, the Treasury Department identified Iran as supportive of ISIS, which has reportedly grown fat in no small part due to deals with the Assad regime for oil from wells under its control . That’s right. According to Western intelligence sources, Assad, Iran’s top client in the region, has a business partnership with ISIS even though ISIS has been fighting his regime. (Assad’s motives are varied, but among them is thought to be a desire to boost jihadist fighters so as to discredit the opposition in Western eyes.)
But even if we were to assume that Iran is truly ISIS’s implacable enemy, that doesn’t mean it would be a good idea for the United States to cooperate with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps — an organization that has been responsible for attacks against U.S. targets stretching back more than 30 years. We have seen in Syria how Iranian-backed forces go about putting down a Sunni-led insurgency. More than 150,000 people have already been killed in the Syrian civil war and millions more uprooted from their homes. The Assad regime has become notorious for dropping “barrel bombs” on civilians and even using chemical weapons .
Iranian-backed groups used equally brutal methods in Iraq during the height of the fighting after al-Qaeda’s bombing of the Samarra mosque in 2006. Shiite extremists became notorious for kidnapping and torturing Sunnis. Those same groups stand on the front lines today of Shiite resistance to ISIS.
The United States would be making a historic error if it were to assist such an Iranian-orchestrated ethnic-cleansing campaign with air power or even with diplomatic support. Not only would this be morally reprehensible, it would be strategically stupid because it would convince the region’s Sunni Muslims that the United States is siding against them with Iran and its regional allies. This could lead Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to support extremists such as ISIS, further feeding the growing sectarian conflict across the region.
Instead, the United States should develop a coalition of our traditional allies dedicated to building up an alternative to al-Qaeda in the vast battlefield now stretching from Baghdad to Damascus . Such a policy will require training and equipping non-jihadist fighters of the Free Syrian Army while working to pull the Iraqi government out of Iran’s orbit. The latter goal will probably require a strenuous effort to scuttle Maliki’s bid for a third term in favor of a more inclusive leader. The United States should also work covertly, as it did during the 2007-2008 surge, to destroy Iranian networks in Iraq.
This is, to be sure, an ambitious plan, but nothing less than the future of the Middle East is at stake. If current trends continue, the United States will be faced with a nuclear Iran standing off against a Sunni Arab world in which al-Qaeda is a more important player than ever and in which at least one state (probably Saudi Arabia) acquires nuclear weapons of its own. Faced with such a prospect, we should not be pursuing a chimerical alliance with Iran. We don’t have to, and should not, ally with one group of terrorists to fight another.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...144b9c-f63e-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/trl8T_nrW4Y

No, the Trouble in Iraq Will Not Bring Iran and the U.S. Together


ADAM CHANDLER

As a radical Sunni insurgency imperils Iraq, the United States and Iran have finally stumbled into a common enemy. So what?
The situation

Despite 35 years of hostility, enmity, proxy war, etc., the swift takeover of wide swaths of Iraq by the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has suddenly endowed the United States and Iran with a shared interest.

The Iranian government sees the advances made by the al Qaeda-inspired Sunni group ISIS as a threat to Iraqi Prime Minister (and fellow Shiite) Nouri al-Maliki. The United States, which spilled blood and untold treasure upending Iraq and then working to stabilize it as well as training the Iraqi army, doesn't want to see its work entirely undone by marauding extremists.

So, quite suddenly, America and Iran want the same thing for the first time in seemingly decades. "The enemy of my enemy" maxim is trending again. Does this mean there's an opening here?
The short and long answers

They're both "no."

Earlier today Iranian President Hassan Rouhani signaled an unlikely willingness to conduct joint actions with the United States to help stabilize Iraq, you know, if it ever comes to that. When asked if Iran could cooperate with the United States on Iraq, here's what he said.
We have not seen the US do anything for now. Any time the Americans start to take action against terrorist groups, we can consider that." ​
This followed yesterday's quickly maligned State Department utterance:

Mike Doran @Doranimated

What garbage! MT @ WSJMidEast State Dept: U.S., Iran Have a 'Shared Interest' in Stabilizing Iraq


Great! The United States and Iran will work together on Iraq and then forge ahead, using their cooperation as a means to make progress on the stalled nuclear talks . And then, in the sake of regional peace, Iran will back off its assistance of Hezbollah, undeclare its desire to see bad things happen to Israel, and distance itself from Russia and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Emboldened by the security advancement, the United States will be able to convince Israelis and Palestinians to make peace and everything else will finally quiet down.

Not even that (reductive) fantasy will see the light of day. The history is too dark, especially on the topic of Iraq. As the New Yorker 's Robin Wright reminded us in a post titled...."The Enemy of My Enemy":
Iran was America’s nemesis throughout the eight-year American war in Iraq. American officials regularly berated the Iranians for providing arms (including I.E.D.s) and strategic guidance to Iraqi militias. “They are responsible for providing the weapons, the training, the funding and, in some cases, the direction for operations that have indeed killed U.S. soldiers,” General David Petraeus told reporters in 2007." ​
Here's another way to put it:

J.R. Salzman @jrsalzman
If I have this right, Iran, the country responsible for the weapons expert and the IED that took my arm, is going to help America with Iraq.

Should the two countries manage to work together on anything, it'll be a miracle. Should they work together on Iraq, it will be a temporary alliance of total convenience.

http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/...ll-not-bring-iran-and-the-us-together/372800/




The US & UK have been prioritizing the will of their energy and defense firms and the anti-Russian camp over Israeli demands. Media Jews are mobilized against it since the opportunity to bring Tehran and DC together presented by the ISIS advance into Iraq materialized. If Iran and the US get too close, Israel could scuttle the whole process with an IDF strike on Iran... or Iranian militarists and zealots could scuttle it by ordering a Hezbollah strike on Israel.
Angocachi
Aleppo Fears New ISIS Offensive

Syria — The spectacular and shocking offensive in Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) that has seen the extremist terror group take large areas in the west of the country, including its second largest city, Mosul, has the entire region and the world rightly worried. ISIS is said to boast an army of 10,000 fierce fighters , more than $2 billion in assets and huge caches of weapons and equipment seized from the Iraqi army, making it a serious threat to global security. The ISIS resurgence in Iraq feeds off the group's escapades in Syria, where it developed from welcomed liberator to despised villain. Will history repeat itself in Iraq?
Abu Jimaa is a middle-aged man with a large family who hails from the town of Bayanoun, a town in Aleppo’s north countryside well-known for its religious conservatism and as the birthplace of many of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria from the al-Bayanouni family . When the Syrian conflict escalated and became armed, Abu Jimaa took up weapons along with many of his townsfolk and joined a local rebel militia. In January, he was involved in routing ISIS from Bayanoun , after their successful advance into the northern countryside, starting with the border town of Azaz, near the Turkish border.

Back then, Abu Jimaa told me how they felt betrayed by the group they had once worked with and welcomed, believing they were liberators who shared their vision and ambition to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. “We didn’t mind that there were many foreigners among them. In fact, we thought it was a great sacrifice and an honor that they would leave their own countries and risk their lives fighting for us. We thought they were our friends and brothers,” Abu Jimaa said at the time.

That special friendship peaked in summer 2013 after ISIS, led by Abu Omar al-Shishani, took the Minnigh military airport, north of Aleppo, after a 10-month siege, prompting the then-head of Aleppo’s Free Syrian Army military council, Col. Abdul Jabbar al-Oqaidi, to sing its praises . That did not last for long, however. After the initial euphoria, it became apparent that ISIS had other plans. Far from sharing the rebels’ goal of ridding Syria of the Assad clan, ISIS' priority was establishing an extremist Islamist caliphate on territory the regime no longer controlled.

Although Abu Jimaa and the overwhelming majority of the rebel factions in Aleppo were Islamists and wanted a Sharia-ruled state, they were not as extreme or fanatical as ISIS members. That inevitably meant clashes with local rebels and other Islamist factions, which ISIS did, successfully taking over large swaths of territory in eastern Syria in al-Raqqa as well as Aleppo, in rural areas and parts of the city, in late 2013. A concerted and unified effort by Islamist rebels who joined forces to create the Islamic Front successfully drove ISIS from rural Aleppo, except for the towns of al-Bab and Manbij to the east.

I've known Abu Jimaa for many years and have maintained contact throughout the Syrian conflict. When I asked him about his thoughts on the dramatic gains by ISIS in Iraq and what impact he thought they might have on the conflict in Syria, he said, “They have become very powerful now, and have all the weapons they took from Iraq and all that money, while we have nothing to fight with. The funny thing is that no one wants to send us weapons in case they fall into their hands, but look now.”

He added that he thought ISIS would be able to take Deir Ez-Zor, to the east, and then come for Aleppo. “This is our fear now, that they will come back after we kicked them out with many losses. But this time we might not be able to defeat them, and many may even join them instead. They will push from al-Bab to the east this time, not from the north.”

On the other side of the equation, 1st Lt. Maged, an officer with the regime stationed in west Aleppo, is a career soldier. He hails from Tartus , on the coast, and is a member of the minority Alawite sect, to which Assad also belongs. Officers like him are the linchpin of the Syrian army, which has been reduced in number — at least the reliably effective corps — but remains fiercely loyal to the regime. Bolstered by local as well as foreign militias, they have been making slow but crucial gains on the battlefield, most recently retaking the scenic Armenian town of Kassab, in Latakia province near the Turkish border. Maged was sent to Aleppo 18 months ago as part of reinforcements to bolster regime forces and prevent what was left of the city still under regime control from falling to the rebels. He told me he has not seen his family since, having never been allowed leave.

The lieutenant also predicted ISIS would return to the north, hit rival rebel factions and confront the regime in Aleppo. “They are now more powerful than the other terrorist groups and will soon destroy them in the north. After that, we will destroy them, and we will have many allies to help us, even the ones who were before against us.”

I asked Maged if he had ever fought directly against ISIS, to which he replied, “No. They avoid direct frontline confrontation, but this will change soon if they come to Aleppo. We will fight them here.” When asked if he was worried that ISIS now had heavy and sophisticated weaponry, he responded, “Of course it worries me. It means more casualties among our men. But it may also persuade our allies to send us more help. It’s a double-edged sword.”

It seems Iraq’s Sunnis supporting ISIS today are destined to share the same fate as Syria’s rebel-supporting Sunnis, as they struggle against a regime they view as sectarian and oppressive . Their willingness to join forces with the devil to defeat their opponents will soon turn the ecstasy of newfound liberation into the slow horrible realization that they’ve been used and preyed upon by an opportunistic terrorist group hell-bent on resurrecting a medieval theocratic fiefdom ruled by brute force and inhumane repression, complete with beheadings, stonings and crucifixions. What is certain is that as ISIS’s fortunes rise in Iraq, they rise as well in Syria. As far as ISIS is concerned, they are fighting in one large, borderless, Islamic state.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/06/syria-aleppo-isis-regime-rebels-iraq-mosul.html#ixzz35BHg7CsW
Angocachi
U.S. and Iran: From sworn enemies to partners on Iraq?

By Tom Cohen and Holly Yan , CNN
June 18, 2014 -- Updated 2039 GMT (0439 HKT)

CNN) -- How can it be? The United States and Iran, sworn enemies for 35 years, are talking about working together to quell the al Qaeda-inspired insurgency sweeping northern Iraq.

Such cooperation sounds unthinkable. They are fierce adversaries on issues such as terrorism, Iran's nuclear ambitions and Syria's civil war.

Iranian leaders call the United States the "Great Satan," while former President George W. Bush labeled Iran as part of an "Axis of Evil."

It was headline news last year when their leaders spoke briefly by phone, the first contact at that level since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 drove the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from power.

But should we be too surprised by this latest version of strange bedfellows, now known as "frenemies" in the modern vernacular? There's even an old saying of uncertain origin to define it -- the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

What's going on?

This time, the common enemy is the threat of a regional war based on sectarian battle lines, pitting Sunni and Shia Muslim governments and peoples against each other across the Middle East.

Only the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ( ISIS ) and its al Qaeda backers would want that, it seems. They seek to establish a Sunni-dominated Islamic state stretching from Iraq to northern Syria.

"We are now closer than ever to a regional war in the Middle East," said Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, who heads the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria. "Events in neighboring Iraq will have grave and violent repercussions for Syria. The most dangerous aspect of these developments has been the rise of the sectarian threat, a direct consequence of the dominance of extremist groups like ISIS."

Shiite majority Iran seeks to protect Shia interests and power in Iraq, while the United States wants to see a stable Iraq after pulling its troops out of the country in 2011 to end its eight-year campaign that began by toppling Saddam Hussein from power.

Also, Iran has sounded a more positive tone toward the West since last year's election of President Hassan Rouhani to succeed the more volatile Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

On Wednesday, Rouhani pledged that Iran would do whatever was necessary to protect Shia holy sites in Iraq.

Where do things stand?

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested possible collaboration with Iran, telling Yahoo News on Monday that "we are open to discussions if there's something constructive that can be contributed by Iran -- if Iran is prepared to do something that is going to respect the integrity and sovereignty of Iraq."

Then, the United States and Iran held "very brief discussions" about Iraq and the threat posed by ISIS on the sidelines of nuclear negotiations in Vienna, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

A senior State Department official said while Washington was open to engaging the Iranians, "these engagements will not include military coordination or strategic determinations about Iraq's future over the heads of the Iraqi people."

The official said on condition of not being identified that the discussion concerns the ISIS threat to "many countries in the region, including Iran," as well as the need to support a more inclusive approach by the Iraqi government than the sectarian efforts by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki .

What's in it for the United States?

Defense Minister Chuck Hagel noted Wednesday that the United States and Iran cooperated early in the Afghanistan war. He told a congressional panel that "we had worked with the Iranians on that western border of Afghanistan."

"So there's some history here of sharing common interests," Hagel said, citing "significant differences" with Iran, but adding that "I don't think these issues come neatly wrapped in geopolitical graduate school papers."
Even a conservative member of Congress who once advocated military strikes on Iran said Washington may need Tehran's help.

"I'll talk to anybody to help our people from being captured or killed," Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said. "And this is a time where the Iranians in a small way might help."

Graham made clear he disapproved of Iran, calling authorities "thugs and killers," then summed up the situation by saying: "But we are where we are."

A host of experts agree, including Meghan O'Sullivan, a former deputy national security adviser during the Iraq war.

"There is a political solution here that I think could be both in Iran's interest and the U.S. interest," O'Sullivan said.

Whether the United States likes it or not, working with Iran on the Iraq crisis might be a necessary evil, retired Maj. Gen. James "Spider" Marks said.

"There are necessary steps that we have to take with Tehran that we've probably never taken before, and would prefer not to take," Marks said.

What's the downside?

Teaming up with Iran could certainly have its pitfalls.

The United States is wary of furthering Iran's already considerable influence in Iraq. The Shiite Iranian regime is Maliki's closest ally in the region, and a U.S.-Iranian partnership could alienate Iraq's Sunni population as well as Sunni nations in the region such as Saudi Arabia that are U.S. allies.

Meanwhile, the United States doesn't want to jeopardize international talks on Iran's nuclear program that resumed this week.

The talks are intended to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, and the United States and Israel have repeatedly said they would use military means against Iran if necessary to achieve that outcome.

House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday that the United States should "absolutely not" talk to Iranians about the Iraq crisis.

"I can just imagine what our friends in the region, our allies will be thinking by reaching out to Iran at a time when they continue to pay for terrorists and foster terrorism not only in Syria, in Lebanon but in Israel as well," the Ohio Republican told reporters.

Will Iran and the U.S. work together on the ground?

A senior security official in Baghdad said Iran has already sent about 500 Revolutionary Guard troops to help fight the ISIS militants.

Rouhani then denied that happened, but said he would be open to helping if asked, according to Iranian state TV.

A Pentagon spokesman said Monday that military coordination with Iran was not in the cards, similar to what the senior State Department official told CNN.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said Obama has ruled out sending any U.S. combat troops to Iraq.
However, Graham noted the need to coordinate in other ways, such as coordinating possible U.S. air strikes on ISIS fighters if Obama orders them.

"If we start flying airplanes, it makes some sense to talk to the Iranians about what we're doing so they don't shoot us down and we don't bomb them," he said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/18/politics/us-iran-iraq/
Angocachi
Britain’s Thaw With Iran, Coming at a Crucial Juncture, Could Be Useful to Allies

LONDON — With the election of a relatively moderate president in Iran and the rise of radical Sunni fighters in Syria and Iraq, Britain is pressing ahead to improve relations with Iran and reopen its embassy in Tehran.

While Britain appears to be moving much more quickly to restore ties with Iran than the United States is, the history of relations is different. The decision to reopen the British Embassy is the culmination of a gradual effort to improve ties with Iran since the election of President Hassan Rouhani a year ago and a new Iranian seriousness about negotiating on the country’s contentious nuclear program.

“It’s very much in Britain’s interest to have a presence in Iran,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations here. “The Iran desk can’t really do its job properly without people on the ground and contacts with Iranian counterparts.”

With the chaos in Syria and now Iraq, Ms. Geranmayeh said, “events are demonstrating that we can’t keep ignoring Iran in this picture,” and in some ways, she added, “Iran seems less of a security threat to Britain, given the Rouhani factor, than Iraq and Syria.”

Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday that he supported improved ties with Iran in any case, but “what is happening in Iraq is not a reason for not taking that step.” He said that foreigners fighting with the radical Sunni group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, known as ISIS, represented “a real threat” to Britain.
“No one should be in any doubt that what we see in Syria and now in Iraq in terms of ISIS is the most serious threat to Britain’s security that there is today,” Mr. Cameron said.

Britain suspended full diplomatic relations with Iran on security, not policy grounds, after the British Embassy was stormed by angry Iranians in November 2011. But Britain did not break ties and has had senior diplomats based in London working with the Iranians. Last October, the two countries each named a nonresident chargé d’affaires to work toward improving relations and reopening their respective embassies, with a modest staff to start.

While British relations with the Islamic Republic have gone up and down many times since the 1979 revolution, they were normalized in 1998 and have only been suspended at different times since then.

The United States, by contrast, has not had a working embassy in Tehran since the immediate aftermath of the revolution, when students and others seized the embassy as a “nest of spies” in November 1979 and held Americans hostage for 444 days. The Iranians said they were responding to the decision by the United States, “the Great Satan,” to give asylum to the deposed shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, when he sought medical treatment for the cancer.

Washington broke diplomatic ties with Iran in April 1980. The Swiss government has since represented American interests in Tehran, and Pakistan has represented Iran in Washington.

While the British Embassy opening will be modest, having a trusted ally back on the ground in Iran to report and gather intelligence will probably benefit the United States and Israel, too, Ms. Geranmayeh said. “It is also an opportunity for Iran to restore its reputation and say that we’re not only serious on the nuclear issue, but that we want to engage on global issues and the economy,” she said.

It also shows Iranians, especially those who support Mr. Rouhani, that there is reciprocity in the West for his effort to reach out and repair ties after years of confrontation under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Given their colonial history and the influence of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company that morphed into BP, many Iranians still believe that Britain, not the United States, pulls the strings in Iran and continues to plot to restore its influence. The obsession with Britain was the heart of a famous novel in 1973, translated as “My Uncle Napoleon,” that was turned into a popular TV series. The show mocks the belief that the British are responsible for everything that happens in Iran.

“There is a colonial hangover,” Ms. Geranmayeh said. “We’re slowly getting over the ‘Uncle Napoleon’ syndrome for both sides. But it will take a lot longer with the United States than with the British.”

But a deal on the nuclear issue would have a major impact on relations with the United States, even if there is no immediate warmth, said Mark Fitzpatrick , a former American diplomat now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“Nothing would change quickly,” he said. “But would a deal help create the conditions for rapprochement? Of course it would. It would take off the table the dominant element of discord.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/w...an-critical-for-syria-iraq-and-isis.html?_r=0 #