Early this morning, planes from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, and Qatar attacked ISIS targets in Syria, including
training bases and command and control infrastructure. The strikes are confirmed
to have caused heavy casualties. The Syrian government was informed beforehand
and did not interfere.
Iran: Constructive Criticism?
Iran appears to have given backhanded support for the
U.S.-led intervention. In an interview last week, Iran’s President Rouhani
catered to a strongly anti-American domestic audience by criticizing the
military action – but in a way that supported the principle behind the action.
Let me emphasize that: the President of Iran supports an
American military intervention in the Middle East. This doesn’t happen often.
If anything, Rouhani criticized the developing for not going
far enough, accusing Americans of being “afraid of their soldiers being killed
in the fight against terrorism” and calling the coalition “ridiculous” for including
countries suspected of financing ISIS – but he didn’t oppose the airstrikes
themselves. He did question their effectiveness (“if we want to combat terrorism,
we have to go to the roots of the problem”), but there’s a good reason for that:
the only time Iran has suffered airstrikes was during their war against Iraq, during
which the Iraqi air force accomplished exceedingly little.
It is time for a fundamental reappraisal of Iran’s foreign
policy interests. The assumption that Iran will always oppose the U.S. has been
decisively proven wrong. The two countries do share interests, and may be able
to collaborate in future. The nuclear negotiations haven’t been written off
yet; there’s good reason to hope that an agreement will be reached eventually.
Rouhani is a moderate who is at times obligated to cater to
domestic conservatives. This can be overstated – Rouhani’s not a Perfect
European Liberal Democrat – but for Iran he’s about as close as it gets. He
wants Iran to remain a theocratic Islamic state – but he wants it to be a
modern and functioning theocratic Islamic state. That means one that will have
to be able to live with its neighbors – including Israel.
Unfortunately, the expansion of the strikes into Syria may cost Iran's support. Rouhani also said that strikes should not take place without the permission of the country they occur in – and no permission was asked for the strikes earlier today. Russia has similar objections.
Unfortunately, the expansion of the strikes into Syria may cost Iran's support. Rouhani also said that strikes should not take place without the permission of the country they occur in – and no permission was asked for the strikes earlier today. Russia has similar objections.
“We will not allow Baghdad to be occupied by the terrorists.”
Rouhani also heavily criticized ISIS, saying “they have
nothing to do with Islam… It doesn’t make any difference from our viewpoint if
the person is Muslim, Jewish, Christian or is the follower of any other
religion… From the viewpoint of the Islamic tenets and culture, killing an
innocent people equals the killing of the whole humanity. And therefore, the
killing and beheading of innocent people in fact is a matter of shame for them [ISIS]
and it's a matter of concern and sorrow for all the human and all the mankind.”
He also suggested that Iran would be willing to send troops against ISIS.
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