Over the last 35 years, there is a very short list of countries that have been implacable enemies of the USA for that entire time. When that period began, our principal enemy was the USSR, but it collapsed over 20 years ago. Most of the Communist nations that were our enemies back then are either gone or they are friends. The only country left from that group as a consistent enemy is North Korea. Even Cuba has now been moved away from enemy status. Besides North Korea, there is only one other nation that has been a consistent enemy: Iran. Now don't misunderstand what I am saying; we have had enemies who have appeared at times like the Afghanistan under the Taliban, but it is just North Korea and Iran who have been enemies at all times since 1980. Indeed, during that time, Iran has been responsible for more deaths of US military forces than essentially any other nation, from the marines killed in the bombing in Lebanon in 1983 by Iran's proxy terrorist group to the hundreds killed by Iranian armed militias and Iranian built IEDs in Iraq.
That history of Iran's enmity towards the USA is one reason why the current push on the left for an alliance with Iran is so troubling. There is no new government in Teheran; it is the same group of mullahs who have spent decades attacking us. There is no prospect that Iran is about to change its goals; no one has even hinted at that as a possibility. No, the main point of those who support such an alliance is that Iran will be useful in stopping the Islamic Sunni terror groups. Basically, the pro-alliance advocates want to just ignore the past to focus on dealing with ISIS and al Qaeda. Iran and its main allies (Assad in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon) are to become America's allies to smash the Sunni terror groups no matter what the past. They just want to ignore that past. Here is how Leslie Gelb put it at the Daily Beast:
Obama’s core of highest level humanitarian interventionists continue to lead the way against any efforts to align with bad guys like Assad and Iran to fight the jihadis. They’re still fixated on Assad’s clearly proven massacres of his own people. He has indeed done terrible things. But these advisers simply don’t get the plain fact that the jihadis are quickly overtaking Assad in atrocities and will go frighteningly further in the end. National Security Adviser Susan Rice and UN Ambassador Samantha Power remain the key knights for this crusade.
The shortsightedness of this position is amazing. Think about what they want to ignore. The "terrible things" that Assad did to his people include (1) shooting innocent civilians on the street for marching in peaceful protest against certain government policies, (2) bombing civilian areas with barrel bombs designed for maximum civilian casualties, (3) using chemical weapons to slaughter thousands in at least 18 documented attacks, (4) literally starving civilians to death by blockading certain areas that supported the rebel forces, and (5) killing of 200,000 Syrians in total. Gelb says that the ISIS fighters will go further than that. Really? Are we to now decide that beheading a few journalists and aid workers is worse than using chemical weapons and killing 200,000 mostly civilians? There is no way that comparison can be made.
The real truth is that America is paying now for Obama's failure to have any policy in Syria for the last three years. We never got together with the moderate Sunnis who are now mostly on the run, so the only ones left to oppose ISIS are Iran and Assad. The problem, however, is that hooking up with Iran really will not work.
One of the principal drivers of conflict in the Islamic world is the split between the Shiites and the Sunnis. It is a battle that has persisted for the last 1400 years. It will not be resolved now or in the near future. There is one country where Shiites vastly outnumber Sunnis: Iran. In Iraq and Lebanon, there are more Shiites than Sunnis but both communities are sizeable. Syria has only about 12% Shiites (actually Alawaites who are not exactly Shiite but who are more closely related to the Shiites than the Sunnis.) In the rest of the Moslem world, Sunnis are the vast majority. What that means is that the pro-Iran group like Gelb want the USA to tie itself to an implacable enemy of ours who is also hated by hundreds of millions of Sunnis around the globe. Most of these Sunnis currently do not see ISIS or al Qaeda as representing them, but if the battle turns into one in which the Shiites align with the "infidels" like the USA fighting against the Sunni groups, it will push those Sunnis further from the USA than almost anything else we could do.
We need to recognize that the Sunni/Shiite divide is a fault line that we should not accept. We need to find Sunni partners to fight the Sunni jihadis. Nothing could be worse for the cause of peace than for America to choose a side in the oldest Islamic fight in the world.
That history of Iran's enmity towards the USA is one reason why the current push on the left for an alliance with Iran is so troubling. There is no new government in Teheran; it is the same group of mullahs who have spent decades attacking us. There is no prospect that Iran is about to change its goals; no one has even hinted at that as a possibility. No, the main point of those who support such an alliance is that Iran will be useful in stopping the Islamic Sunni terror groups. Basically, the pro-alliance advocates want to just ignore the past to focus on dealing with ISIS and al Qaeda. Iran and its main allies (Assad in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon) are to become America's allies to smash the Sunni terror groups no matter what the past. They just want to ignore that past. Here is how Leslie Gelb put it at the Daily Beast:
Obama’s core of highest level humanitarian interventionists continue to lead the way against any efforts to align with bad guys like Assad and Iran to fight the jihadis. They’re still fixated on Assad’s clearly proven massacres of his own people. He has indeed done terrible things. But these advisers simply don’t get the plain fact that the jihadis are quickly overtaking Assad in atrocities and will go frighteningly further in the end. National Security Adviser Susan Rice and UN Ambassador Samantha Power remain the key knights for this crusade.
The shortsightedness of this position is amazing. Think about what they want to ignore. The "terrible things" that Assad did to his people include (1) shooting innocent civilians on the street for marching in peaceful protest against certain government policies, (2) bombing civilian areas with barrel bombs designed for maximum civilian casualties, (3) using chemical weapons to slaughter thousands in at least 18 documented attacks, (4) literally starving civilians to death by blockading certain areas that supported the rebel forces, and (5) killing of 200,000 Syrians in total. Gelb says that the ISIS fighters will go further than that. Really? Are we to now decide that beheading a few journalists and aid workers is worse than using chemical weapons and killing 200,000 mostly civilians? There is no way that comparison can be made.
The real truth is that America is paying now for Obama's failure to have any policy in Syria for the last three years. We never got together with the moderate Sunnis who are now mostly on the run, so the only ones left to oppose ISIS are Iran and Assad. The problem, however, is that hooking up with Iran really will not work.
One of the principal drivers of conflict in the Islamic world is the split between the Shiites and the Sunnis. It is a battle that has persisted for the last 1400 years. It will not be resolved now or in the near future. There is one country where Shiites vastly outnumber Sunnis: Iran. In Iraq and Lebanon, there are more Shiites than Sunnis but both communities are sizeable. Syria has only about 12% Shiites (actually Alawaites who are not exactly Shiite but who are more closely related to the Shiites than the Sunnis.) In the rest of the Moslem world, Sunnis are the vast majority. What that means is that the pro-Iran group like Gelb want the USA to tie itself to an implacable enemy of ours who is also hated by hundreds of millions of Sunnis around the globe. Most of these Sunnis currently do not see ISIS or al Qaeda as representing them, but if the battle turns into one in which the Shiites align with the "infidels" like the USA fighting against the Sunni groups, it will push those Sunnis further from the USA than almost anything else we could do.
We need to recognize that the Sunni/Shiite divide is a fault line that we should not accept. We need to find Sunni partners to fight the Sunni jihadis. Nothing could be worse for the cause of peace than for America to choose a side in the oldest Islamic fight in the world.
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