ISIS: Washington’s Honey Trap for Iran in Iraq

Are we witnessing a new era of cooperation between the US and Iran, prompted by the crisis gripping Iraq?

That’s quite a turnaround, considering Washington continues to accuse Iran of sponsoring international terrorism and secretly harboring ambitions to build  nuclear weapons.

America’s top diplomat John Kerry says the US is “now open” to working with Iran in a bid to halt the collapse of the Baghdad government, as formerly Al Qaeda-linked militants take over large parts of the country and are poised within 60 kilometers of the Iraqi capital.

The seemingly dramatic shift in US policy towards Iran is underlined by Washington’s ally Britain saying also this week that it is planning to re-open the British embassy in Tehran after years of closure. UK Foreign Minister William Hague said the move reflected the “warming  relations” between Iran and the West over the Iraq crisis.

The New York Times reports that the West and Iran are trying to find “common security interests” in Iraq. The paper claims that both sides share a “common enemy” – the militants of the so-called Islamic State
of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The ideology of ISIS is a reflection of its Wahhabi sponsors among the Saudi and Qatari monarchies, both of which have plied over $10 billion into supporting the ISIS and other extremist groups, such as Jabhat al Nusra.

Now Washington and its mouthpieces are re-writing recent history by trying to make out that the ISIS and its terrorist ilk are “enemies of the West”.

However, one of the other main Western objectives of regime change in Syria over the past three years is to weaken Syria’s key regional ally, Iran.

That perspective of underlying Western hostility towards Iran needs to be kept firmly in focus as we assess the current turmoil in Iraq. Washington is not extending a hand of cooperation towards Iran. It is rather more a poisoned chalice.

It is significant that the seemingly explosive advances made by ISIS in Iraq follows two developments: the nearing outright military defeat of this Western proxy in neighboring Syria; and the stunning election victory of President Assad earlier this month, when he won the backing of nearly 89 per cent of the Syrian electorate.

Both developments have effectively put paid to NATO, Arab and Israeli attempts to subvert Syria with their more than three-year campaign of covert terrorism in that country.

Notice, too, how Syria has suddenly dropped from the Western media news cycles. This signals that Washington and its allies have realized that they cannot prosecute  their objectives of regime change in Syria and, secondarily, Iran.

Western diplomatic sources are saying that Washington is not contemplating military cooperation with Iran in securing Iraq. But what might be on the cards is for Washington to countenance “Iran sending in troops to Iraq” to help shore up the government of Prime
Minister Nouri al Maliki.

The most effective way to end the violence in Iraq is for Washington and its allies to stop fuelling the proxy ISIS mercenaries and their war of terror in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the region. That Washington and its allies are not contemplating the effective solution shows that their purported concerns for Iraq are not genuine, and nor  are their “friendly” overtures towards Iran.