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Tags: Iran | ISIS

Without Iran's Help, US Fight Against ISIS Will Be Stymied

By    |   Monday, 15 September 2014 12:24 PM EDT

Battling the Islamic State (ISIS) must be started now, even as Iran is unlikely to cooperate in a coalition to destroy it, because the motivation behind the terrorist front is full-on Jihad — far different than any sort of contemporary war, Politico magazine reports of the U.S.-led struggle ahead.

The concern over Iran's resistance to participate in the fight marks a double-edged sword that will keep Obama from destroying the Islamic State because the Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly resisted any sort of "offer" to join forces to intervene. Without Iran, however, efforts against ISIS will be undermined, Politico noted.

"American officials' comments on forming an anti-Islamic State [alliance] are blank, hollow and self-serving, and contradictions in their behaviors and statements attest to this fact," Khamenei told state television on Monday, lending a blow to much-needed support.

Such comments put the U.S. on a slippery slope as it seeks to lead a military coalition against religious zealots — without entering a full-fledged war as officials have danced around that word's semantics.

Yet inaction now will prolong such a fight for decades, Politico noted, comparing the battle to strategy employed during the French Revolution as well as the unified global efforts to rout the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution and ensuing Cold War — which ran seven decades long.

"The fight against the radical jihadist movement that has taken over large parts of Syria and Iraq is not simply a war," Politico noted in a column by Jack A. Goldstone, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

"ISIL, by contrast, is conducting a revolutionary war, in which civilians are recruited to support an ideological cause and rallied to overturn and replace regimes that are widely seen as unjust and illegitimate."

Goldstone adds: "That is why the success of President Obama's strategy to destroy ISIL depends on political solutions in both Iraq and Syria that provide inclusive and resilient civilian regimes. Yet so far unspoken is an essential fact of life in the Middle East: There can be no political solution in either Iraq or Syria without Iran's assent."

Iran remains in a tough position, even as its leaders push back on cooperation with U.S. interests, the Washington Post noted.

The diplomatic balance there, however, seems much improved, especially through the new president, Hassan Rouhani, who is looking to escape sanctions over the nation's nuclear program, Goldstone asserts.

Even Rouhani has said that airstrikes are hardly enough to stem ISIL's violent spread in his region, The Economic Times reported.

"Iran is now also deeply reliant on U.S. help to sustain a stable and friendly Iraq next door. And ISIL is a mortal threat to both U.S. interests and to Iran. Rarely have U.S. and Iranian interests aligned so cleanly."

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Battling the Islamic State (ISIS) must be started now, even as Iran is unlikely to cooperate in a coalition to destroy it, because the motivation behind the terrorist front is full-on Jihad - far different than any sort of contemporary war, Politico magazine reports of the...
Iran, ISIS
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2014-24-15
Monday, 15 September 2014 12:24 PM
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