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Iran Gets Unexpected Support from U.S. In Its Push to Take Over Iraq

by TheTower.org Staff |

Iranian actions fighting ISIS in Iraq have been “helpful,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the latest indication that the Obama administration’s ISIS strategy involves allowing Iran’s efforts to spread its influence across the Middle East.

Asked by panel moderator Walter Isaacson about Iranian cooperation in the fight against ISIS (sometimes known in Arabic as “Daesh”), Kerry responded, “Look, we have challenges with Iran, as everybody knows, and we’re working on those challenges. But I can tell you that Iran in Iraq has been in certain ways helpful, and they clearly are focused on ISIL/Daesh. And so we have a common interest, actually.”

Isaacson followed up by asking if last year’s nuclear deal would lead to more opportunities for the United States and Iran to work together. “There’s no question that it opened up the opportunity for communication,” Kerry responded, citing the return of American sailors seized by Iran in January as an example.

Iran has honored the officers involved in the seizure of the sailors, whose treatment in captivity was dubbed by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to be “inconsistent with international law.”

Contrary to Kerry’s positive assessment of Iran’s influence in Iran, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad cautioned in a Wall Street Journal interview earlier this month that the Popular Mobilization Forces, the Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite militias who have been fighting ISIS and are commanded by a U.S.-designated terrorist, “remain a basis for continuing conflict and for conditions that lead to the rise of terror, maybe in a different name after ISIS.” Some of these militias have been accused of severe human rights violations.

This is consistent with security expert Michael Pregent’s assessment last year, when he noted that Iran and its allied Shiite militias were only fighting ISIS on the margins, refusing to extend themselves too far to fully finish them off.

In I Saw the U.S. Hand Iraq Over to the Iranians. Is the Whole Region Next?, which was published in the February 2015 issue of The Tower Magazine, Pregent observed:

Iran appears to believe that the U.S. is essentially standing behind them on the ISIS issue. This, in turn, is seen as a tacit endorsement of Iranian influence in Iraq. In fact, recent statements from key U.S. officials on Iran’s ostensibly constructive role in the fight against ISIS have been interpreted as a green light for Iran to increase its sphere of influence in Iraq.

As a result, what was once rumored to be true is now out in the open: Shia militias are commanded by the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards-Quds Force. Shia militias that once targeted and killed U.S. and other coalition members now populate the ranks of Iraq’s paramilitary Popular Mobilization Units. Shia militias and their Iranian handlers are operating with impunity for the first time; not only against ISIS, but also against their Sunni enemies in general. As a result, Iran and its proxies now believe that the U.S. views them as a necessary evil on the battlefield and legitimate partners in the Iraqi government.

This has given Iran and its Shia proxies enormous influence over Iraqi politics. Recent statements from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, for example, promise a more inclusive government, endorsing more Sunni involvement in government ministries and Iraqi security forces. To accomplish this, however, al-Abadi must get the approval of the Shia political parties, which means he needs to get the approval of Iran.

In effect, then, Iran now has veto power over Iraqi government policies.

[Photo: The Aspen Institute / John Kerry ]

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