The enrichment program for Iranian sports

Haaretz

“Are Americans afraid of giving casualties on the ground in Iraq? Are they afraid of their soldiers being killed in the fight they claim is against terrorism?” Iranian President Hassan Rohani told NBC News in an interview on Wednesday in Tehran.

The harsh criticism of the U.S. should not be particularly surprising. After all, the U.S. and Iran have a mutual interest in uprooting the Islamic State group, which Rohani described as a terrorist organization: “They want to kill humanity.”

“If they want to use planes and if they want to use unmanned planes so that nobody is injured from the Americans, is it really possible to fight terrorism without any hardship, without any sacrifice?” asked Rohani. “Is it possible to reach a big goal without that? In all regional and international issues, the victorious one is the one who is ready to do sacrifice.”

What is surprising is that while Rohani effectively invites the Americans to start attacking Islamic State, his boss, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has a number of reservations.

Before the Arab and international coalition was established, Khamenei explained that Islamic State resulted from a western and, in particular, American conspiracy. Later reports said Khamenei himself approved the cooperation with the Americans. The report was quickly denied, but Iranian sources insist it is true. Rohani even said that if the Americans take practical steps against the Islamic State, it is possible to think about cooperation with them.

This week, after Khamenei underwent prostate surgery — which raised a number of questions about his health and who could succeed him — he said Iran was proud not to be part of the U.S.-led coalition. Khamenei called a mistake the conference in Paris at the beginning of the week, to which Iran was not invited and at which the coalition was agreed upon.

A few members of Iran’s parliament explained that the establishment of the coalition was an American conspiracy to return to Iraq and attack Iran’s strategic rear. But Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif opined that it was possible to exploit Iran’s cooperation in the coalition against ISIS to ease the sanctions on Iran. If the Americans want us to do something, they must do something for us — like ask the United Nations to remove the sanctions, said Zarif.

So the question is whether Iran is in or out in the battle of the coalition against ISIS.

It is clear to Iran and the U.S., which agreed to Saudi Arabia’s request and refused to invite Iran to the Paris conference, that in any campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Iran will have a central role. But when you are building an international and Arab coalition, even if there is across-the-board agreement about the goals, the tensions among the coalition partners could exact a steep price that could endanger the coalition’s very existence.

This time Washington did not have any difficulty making a decision, since between Saudi Arabia and Iran the choice was clear. But whoever wants to drive Islamic State out of Syria cannot give up on the Iranians as partners.

The war U.S. President Barack Obama declared against Islamic State is divided between two fronts, each of which has its own package of international limitations that could harm the efficiency of the campaign.

On the Syrian front, the U.S. cannot act as long as Iran and Russia object to any military operations. On Tuesday, it seems an American drone was seen flying over Aleppo, Syria, and Obama even clarified that if there was a military need, he would attack even in Syria. But in the meantime the weapons are on safety.

The rebels in Syria can, of course, enjoy their intensive training program more after the U.S. Congress approves the $500 million appropriation that Obama asked for to pay for the training, but they will not receive any high-quality weapons, or game-changer as they are called.

In practice the West and the Arabs agree that foreign ground troops should not be sent to Syria and the campaign against Islamic State must be conducted by rebel forces with the support of Western intelligence. Almost everything has already been said about the limited capabilities of the rebel militias in Syria. The internal wars among them and the lack of a united leadership have played right into the hands of the Assad regime and have allowed him to expand his control of the country.

Iraq, by contrast, is a relatively uncomplicated front. Yet when the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, said this week that deploying ground troops would be an option if the current strategy fails, it sparked outrage in Iraq. The new prime minister, Haider al-Ibadi, stated unequivocally that “American forces on Iraqi land are unwanted,” while Muqtada al-Sadr threatened that the Shi’ite militia he heads would fight any American troops that landed in Iraq.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates offered to have their forces participate in the fighting, but some Saudis are already objecting to the idea of Sunnis fighting Sunnis for the sake of Iraq’s Shi’ite government. The fear is that if Riyadh sends troops, so will Tehran, and the result is liable to be an Arab-Iranian war rather than a joint fight against Islamic State.

Within Iraq itself, the coalition forces will try to encourage Sunni tribes to fight alongside the Kurds against Islamic State. According to reports from Mosul, the U.S. has already started reviving the network of informants that it abandoned after American forces withdrew from Iraq at the end of 2011. These informants were kept secret from the Iraqi government. The person in charge of trying to recruit them again is Gen. John Allen, the leader of the coalition forces, who is known for his good ties with the Iraqi tribes, forged in the days when he commanded U.S. forces in western Iraq.

But here, too, the coalition might find itself facing internal opposition. This week, the media reported that the Iraqi Army had asked residents of Diyala to fight against Kurdish peshmerga forces near that city in order to prevent the Kurds from seizing additional territory. On the other hand, the governor of the province of Kirkuk said this week that some 5,000 people had volunteered to join the fight against Islamic State. Just as in Syria, in Iraq, too, the war against Islamic State is liable to produce new tribal alliances that won’t necessarily support the coalition forces.

In recent days a new threat arose when Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which is centered in Yemen, published a statement urging all Muslim forces to unite in a war against “the Crusader onslaught.” This announcement represents a U-turn in the policy of Al-Qaida, which until now has viewed the Islamic State as a rival that threatens its own standing in the Middle East. It’s not clear whether this will lead the Nusra Front, Al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate, to join forces with Islamic State, or at least bring about a cease-fire in the war between the two organizations. But it could result in a new front with which coalition forces will have to contend.

Aside from this web of organizations and militias, which greatly limits its ability to rely on local forces, the Western coalition also suffers from a lack of Turkish cooperation, since Turkey has not joined the coalition. Granted, air strikes don’t necessarily have to be conducted from Turkish bases, but Turkey’s geographic proximity to Iraq and Syria could have been a major help in launching these attacks, and especially in sending in ground forces, should a decision be made to do so.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan said this week that the fact that Islamic State is holding 49 Turkish hostages limits Turkey’s ability to contribute to the effort, since its first responsibility is to its own citizens. Yet at the same time, numerous reports indicate that about 1,000 Turks have joined Islamic State’s ranks and that the organization sends its wounded fighters to Turkish hospitals for treatment.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan naturally rejects these charges, and this week, he even lashed out at The New York Times for publishing a picture of Erdogan and then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (who has since become prime minister) leaving the Haci Bayram-i Veli Mosque in Ankara, from which, the newspaper said, about 100 volunteers have gone to join Islamic State. The paper apologized for publishing the picture, which was taken in August, but hasn’t retracted the accusation that Turkey serves as a recruiting base for the organization.

Given the rifts, both open and hidden, that characterize the Arab and Western coalition, most of the burden seems likely to fall on the U.S. Army. True, the Gulf States promised to help finance the campaign, but the U.S. will be the one on the front lines — not only the military ones but the diplomatic ones as well, if it turns out that its strategy doesn’t work.