Iran's Military Mastermind Is 'The Leader Of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, And Yemen'
IranSuleimani celebrating with Hade Amre, chief of Shia militias, during the liberation of Jawlala in Iraq from Islamic State.As the US provides air cover for Iranian-backed militias fighting ISIS (aka Islamic State, ISIL, Daesh) in Iraq, the longest continuously serving American official in the country has strong opinions about who is in control.
For the Americans, any campaign against ISIS means US planes and combat advisors working in parallel with Iranian planes and Shia militias who have US blood on their hands.
"In Iraq, a degree of coordination between the American military and Iran's is imperative but also awkward," The Times notes, "making it appear that the United States is working in tandem with its adversary."
Reuters
The Obama administration, while denying any coordination, does not seem to mind Iran's empowerment as the two countries negotiate a potential nuclear deal that Obama hopes will rebalance the region for the better.
The consequences of the Iran-backed agenda are becoming increasingly clear, however, as the regime of Bashar al-Assad continues to rain barrel bombs on civilians, Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate routs US-backed rebels, Tehran sends more fighters to bolster Assad, Iraqi Shia militias torch Sunni villages in Iraq, and ISIS runs a self-declared caliphate across both Iraq and Syria.
In August, Khedery told Reza Akhlaghi of the Foreign Policy Association that these circumstances will only breed more sectarian violence.
"So what will happen is that the spiral of sectarian warfare will increase more and more, radicalizing the Sunni populations more and more and eventually spilling over into countries across the region almost all of which have mixed Shia-Sunni populations," the former advisor said.
Morgan StanleyA look at the Sunni-Shia divide across the Middle East
Khedery has been very critical of the Obama administration's handling of Iraq.
The thrust of the critique involves Obama backing former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, an Iran-backed Shia, in December 201o while also betraying promises made to the Sunni tribal leaders who had previously fought with American troops against ISIS-predecessor Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
America's continued support of Maliki made it so that "Iraq's path toward civil war was really inevitable," Khedery said in August, explaining that Maliki steered Baghdad "toward a very pro-Iranian and sectarian agenda, which inevitably disillusioned and disenfranchised Sunni Arabs for a second time."
Meanwhile, the US turned away from Iraq after Washington went along with the plan created by Suleimani, effectively handing off the country to Iran as a way to remove US troops and still stabilize the country.
"Then given Maliki's misrule in Iraq and Assad's misrule in Syria and their cooperation along with the Iranians and Hezbollah to wage a campaign of genocide, led to a region-wide sectarian war while the United States under President Obama stood back and watched and did nothing as the violence spiraled further and further out of control," Khedery argued in August.