US leverages Iran-Iraq-Syria axis against Islamic State
Al Monitor
Another bridge to Syria and Iran has been Iraq, according to
Foreign Policy’s The Cable and The Wall Street Journal. Iraqi national
security adviser Faleh al-Fayyad traveled to Syria on Sept. 16 to brief
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the “latest steps taken in this
regard, as well as discussing upcoming steps and possible measures to
ensure the success of these efforts and eliminate terrorist
organizations in all their forms.”
Although the deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces,
Gen. Massoud Jazayeri, said that Iran’s nuclear negotiating team at the
United Nations has no authority to discuss the campaign against IS, as
reported by Arash Karami, it is an open secret that US and Iranian
officials have been talking about just that on the sidelines of the
nuclear talks.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in his remarks at the UN, opened
the door to even further collaboration against IS once a nuclear deal is
reached, as reported by Barbara Slavin and Laura Rozen.
The United States and Iran cannot formally link arms in Syria,
especially given the lack of progress in the nuclear talks. Iran has
been an adversary and enemy, not an ally, and still supports and
shelters terrorists, according to The Daily Beast.
Nonetheless, the trend to watch is the tentative emergence of what
may be a truly regional counterterrorism coalition, with potential for a
transformation in regional security, if managed carefully.
This column speculated back in January that the “new pulse” of the
Geneva II process would be addressing the threat to counterterrorism in
the region, with an essential role for Iran.
The Iran-Iraq-Syria axis provides a sectarian complement to the primarily Sunni Arab powers backing US airstrikes.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, after meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal on Sept. 21, spoke of
“the first page of a new chapter” in Iran-Saudi relations, with consequences for many of the region’s most vexing conflicts.
Iran is in the fight against IS for its own interests, not to cull
favor with the United States. Its efforts have won praise from Massoud
Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government, who said at a
press conference with Zarif on Aug. 27, “Iran was the first country to
provide us with weapons and ammunition” to confront the IS advance
toward Erbil.
While Zarif denied that Iran had provided any ground forces in Iraq,
Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who runs the aerospace division of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said this past week that IRGC forces
were directly involved in the defense of Erbil, according to The
Associated Press.
Iran was instrumental in the peaceful transfer of the premiership
from Nouri al-Maliki to Haider al-Abadi in Iraq, and in managing the
presidential transition from former President Hamid Karzai to Ashraf
Ghani in Afghanistan. Cooperation in Afghanistan may be more urgent than
ever, given the recent surge in Taliban violence in that country.
There are alternative perspectives on Iran’s role against IS. For
some observers, the prospect of any type of accommodation with Iran is
so alarming that they suggest giving a kind of pass to Jabhat al-Nusra,
al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, which has aligned with other so-called
moderate Islamist rebel forces, because of the perceived greater good of
toppling Assad, and to assure Iran does not get an advantage in Syria.
Just a quick fact: Al-Qaeda, not Assad or Iran, was responsible for
the terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and
until last year, Jabhat al-Nusra worked hand in hand with IS. The break
between the two groups, both of which are designated by the United
States and the UN as terrorist organizations, is the result of a power
struggle, not a change of heart in either its hatred of the United
States or its ambitions to impose Sharia in those areas it controls.
If there are US-backed opposition groups that are aligned with Jabhat
al-Nusra and advocating a go-easy approach on the terrorist group, then
perhaps the United States should reconsider funding those
“moderate” groups. This column warned in December 2013 that the
emergence of the Islamic Front among the opposition would be a “disaster
for Syria’s opposition and future,” and here we are today with some in
the Syrian opposition seeking to mainstream an al-Qaeda affiliate.
This should be a huge, neon warning sign about the perils of playing
in opposition politics, where anti-Western jihadists, not pro-US
democrats, carry the most sway.
The actions taken by Iran against IS to date contrast with what
Turkey has done, or not done, until now against the terrorist group. The
release last week of the 46 Turkish citizens held hostage by IS in Iraq
may signal a new Turkish approach. Mustafa Akyol reviews polling data
that reveals jihadism is a “marginal trend” in Turkish society.
Semih Idiz writes that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will
need to overcome some troubling caveats in Turkey’s policies to date
against extremist groups and step up against IS:
“It’s also not clear how the ruling Justice and Development Party’s
Islamist roots will respond to active participation by Turkey against IS
and other such Islamic groups, regardless of how radical they may be.
Developments have shown, however, that Turkey is not as influential on
its own in the region as it may have once thought, and that it has
little choice but to move back to the multilateral track. This means it
has no choice but to act with regional and global allies to confront
situations that pose a danger to its national security.”
The trend toward a regional counterterrorism strategy is nascent and
fragile, but — if managed carefully — has the potential, over time, of a
breakthrough in regional politics, especially with a change in Turkish
policies.
Despite the political constraints on Rouhani by hard-liners in Iran,
his government is already taking its own initiative to battle extremists
in the region and clearly signaling it is ready to do more. As Fareed
Zakaria wrote this week: “When Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger decided
in the 1970s that Iran would be one of their ‘regional policemen,’ they
did so out of recognition of Iran’s geostrategic importance, not simply
because they supported the shah.”
If Iran, over time, shifts from enemy to ally, beginning with a
nuclear agreement and coordination in the fight against terrorism, then
many of the region’s most vexing problems, including the role of
Hezbollah, can be put in play. This column reported in February: “A
discussion with Iran about Syria is a prelude to a broader discussion
about Hezbollah, which is at the crux of the US tagging Iran as a state
sponsor of terrorism.” That is the conversation that needs to be had
during this transition. Given how far the US-Iran dialogue has already
come, it is not out of the question to consider the potential of such a
trend.
The Arab pulse
The trend toward a possible regional coalition against IS, under US
leadership, could be the beginning of the end for the extremist force
that, according to the latest US government estimates, number between
20,000 and 31,500.
While the threat of Islamic extremism will never be completely
eradicated, there is a pulse among the peoples of the Arab world for a
new politics, transparency and accountability from their leaders. The
trend toward conflict resolution and good governance in the Middle East
is fragile and not assured, but it can take hold if given a chance.
Look at Lebanon. More than two decades after a brutal sectarian civil
war, the country today is a vibrant mosaic of its peoples and
cultures. The leaders and groups that fought each other for decades now
coexist, sometimes uneasily, but coexist nonetheless around a consensus
on keeping the peace. It is fragile, for sure, but it is
there. Lebanon’s universities maintain their reputation as a magnet for
the best and brightest in Lebanon and the region.
Despite these nascent yet hopeful trends, there remains an approach
to the region that pins the problems of the Arab world on its
alleged “civilizational ills,” implying Arabs have a cultural
predisposition to tribalism, corruption and religious violence, as if
these phenomena do not exist in other cultures and societies. These
culturally driven essays make good copy, especially when written by
someone from the region who employs an abundance of “history” and
metaphor.
A more helpful, and truly analytical, historical approach to what is
indeed a crisis in the Arab region would include an assessment of the
effect of colonialism and the postcolonial experience on Arab societies;
the impact of oil on the international relations of the region; the
consequences of rentier economies in the Gulf; the role of outside,
non-Arab powers including the United States, Russia, European countries,
Israel, Iran and Turkey on the region’s politics; the impact of the
creation of Israel and the Palestinian national movement; the influence
of the Wahhabist tradition on current jihadist groups; the role of
states, institutions and individuals, in and outside the region,
which have backed the flow and emergence of these jihadist movements;
and
the economic and demographic trends that may shape the Arab region in the decades to come.
Arab civilization is not “sick”; its peoples are in the midst of a
struggle for identity and democracy, where the forces of extremism
command resources and influence. The people of the Levant love their
culture, their cities and their land, and there is much to be proud of.
There is no reason to believe the Arab peoples of the Levant will not
reclaim their place in the world, as happened in Lebanon, with the
assistance of an international community and region that is ready to put
an end to those fringe groups that prey on the forces of division, not
unity.
