Category Archives: Iran

Billionaire’s sketchy Middle East gamble: Meet the man betting on war with Iran

Eli Clifton reports: On the same evening last November that world powers announced an interim deal with Iran, halting its nuclear progress in exchange for a modest easing of sanctions, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) put out a statement complaining that the agreement was a “disappointment” and “provides disproportionate sanctions relief to Iran.” The group’s executive director, former U.S. diplomat Mark Wallace, suggested that no sanctions relief was appropriate as part of an interim deal: “By rolling back sanctions now, the international community is significantly lessening the pressure on Iran’s economy.”

That same group, at the end of July, turned up in a bit of intrigue: the New York Times revealed that the Justice Department had stepped in to a defamation suit against UANI to prevent the disclosure of documents revealing the group’s donors, among other information. UANI serves as a key pressure group for the enforcement of sanctions, frequently issuing reports and press releases about companies doing illicit business with Iran.

The Times reported that lawyers representing Greek shipping magnate Victor Restis, the plaintiff in the suit, accused UANI of receiving foreign funding and shaking down companies for donations. UANI had earlier accused Restis and his company of being “front men for the illicit activities of the Iranian regime.”

But it remains unclear what potential revelations the Justice Department is concerned about.

Among the pieces of heretofore undisclosed information the Justice Department’s shield might prevent from coming to light is the connection between UANI and one of the biggest investors in precious metals, Thomas S. Kaplan. Kaplan has emerged as one of the business world’s most outspoken proponents of investing in gold and other precious metals, investments he says will retain or appreciate in value during periods of political and economic unrest. [Continue reading…]

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Why has Iran had so little to say about Gaza?

Trita Parsi writes: Nothing in the Middle East seems normal right now. Israel locks the United States out of cease-fire talks with Egypt over Gaza. U.S.-Saudi relations look increasingly like a marriage that both sides regret getting into in the first place. Egypt’s state media publicly cheers Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he bombs Gaza. Saudi Arabia pretends to be unaware of the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas. Protests against Israel’s bombing campaign are larger in Europe than in the Arab Middle East.

The surprises don’t stop there. Iran’s relative silence on the Gaza war has been deafening: Spanish actors Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have been more forceful in their criticism of Israel’s Gaza attacks than many Iranian officials.

Iran is usually known for jumping on every possible opportunity to blast Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. The Iranian game plan in the past few decades has been to boost its bid for regional leadership by portraying the Arab states as impotent “servants of American interests” in the Middle East, while portraying Tehran as the true champion of the Palestinian cause — and therefore the leader of the Islamic world.

Fighting between Hamas and Israel in Gaza is usually a political cash cow for Iran’s leaders. But by their own standards, Iranian leaders have remained curiously quiet on the ongoing, month-long fight. Why? Shifting dynamics across the Middle East and a new president in Tehran have changed Iran’s political calculus on Palestine.

Iran has a widespread reputation as Hamas’s main patron, providing the group with rockets and weapons over the past decade. But the relationship between the Palestinian Islamists and the government in Tehran has never been friction free. The Hamas leadership has long complained that Tehran talked a good game, but in practice did little to help the Palestinian Islamist group. Ideologically, there has always been a gulf between the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired Sunni group and the Shiite thinkers of Qom. But full-on tensions between these disparate Islamists only broke out with the Syrian Civil War, when Hamas sided early on with the Syrian opposition and Tehran backed President Bashar al-Assad. Tehran viewed Hamas Leader Khaled Meshaal’s break with the Syrian dictator in 2012 as a betrayal after years of providing the group with both financial support and a base in Damascus.

Earlier this year, Hamas and Tehran officially reconciled. “Relations between Iran and Hamas have returned to be as they were before and we have no problem with Hamas,” the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, told a Lebanese television channel. But mistrust remained amid the conciliatory rhetoric, as Iranian officials have told me. Leaders of the Islamic Republic do not have a reputation of forgetting quickly or forgiving genuinely. [Continue reading…]

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Justice Dept. moves to shield anti-Iran group’s files

The New York Times reports: The Obama administration has gone to court to protect the files of an influential anti-Iran advocacy group, saying they likely contain information the government does not want disclosed.

The highly unusual move by the Justice Department raises questions about the connections between the American government and the group, United Against Nuclear Iran, a hard-line voice seeking to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The group has a roster of prominent former government officials and a reputation for uncovering information about companies that sometimes do business with Iran, in violation of international sanctions.

The Justice Department has temporarily blocked the group from having to reveal its donor list and other internal documents in a defamation lawsuit filed by a Greek shipping magnate the group accused of doing business with Iran. Government lawyers said they had a “good faith basis to believe that certain information” would jeopardize law enforcement investigations, reveal investigative techniques or identify confidential sources if released. [Continue reading…]

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Iraqi leader Maliki loses backing of Sistani and Iran for new term

The Wall Street Journal reports: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is losing political support for his bid for a third term from core backers, including the country’s Shiite religious establishment and ally Iran, say Iraqi officials.

The shift, officials said, is prompting members of the premier’s own alliance to reconsider their support and dimming the prospect of his stay in power.

In recent days, high-level delegations of Iranian military officials and diplomats held a flurry of meetings in Baghdad and the Shiite religious capital Najaf, where they were told that Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, has lost the confidence of all but his most loyal inner circle, Iraqi officials with knowledge of the meetings said.

One Iraqi official briefed on the meetings said Iranian representatives signaled during their visit that Tehran has “really started to lean away from Maliki as a candidate.”

Also critically, Mr. Maliki’s bid to stay in office has, say prominent Shiite politicians, run into opposition from Iraq’s top Shiite spiritual authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has become central to the grinding talks between political blocs to form a government. [Continue reading…]

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Mossad chief: Palestinian conflict top threat to Israel’s security, not Iran

Haaretz reports: The biggest threat to Israel’s security is the conflict with the Palestinians and not Iran’s nuclear program, Mossad chief Tamir Pardo said Thursday at a meeting at a private home attended by 30 businesspeople.

According to a person present during the 90-minute talk, Pardo dealt largely with the organizational changes he had made at the Mossad, as well as management policies at the spy agency. But during the question-and-answer period, participants asked him to assess the greatest threats facing Israel.

Pardo said, according to the source, that the major threat to Israel is the conflict with the Palestinians. When some of the participants asked him to repeat what he said, he answered: “Yes, the biggest threat is the Palestinian issue.”

Someone asked whether the Iranian nuclear threat was the second largest threat. Pardo surprised his audience by saying Iran might produce or purchase a nuclear weapon in the future, but he wouldn’t “recommend rushing to obtain a foreign passport.”

One person noted that Pardo’s words suggested he did not share the urgency in speeches by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tehran’s nuclear program. It was clear that Pardo did not consider this issue a significant threat, let alone an existential one.

Pardo listed the threats facing Israel, including a takeover of parts of Iraq by the Islamic State organization and its threats to neighboring Jordan under King Abdullah.

“This is a worrisome problem for Israel,” Pardo said. “This organization is here to stay. They embrace the public like [Israeli ultra-Orthodox party] Shas does, with a welfare and education system. They espouse murder for its own sake. Hamas is a lightweight organization by comparison.” [Continue reading…]

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Iranian pilot killed fighting in Iraq: Can Iran avoid ‘mission creep’?

The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran is pursuing a delicate strategy of supporting fellow Shiite Muslims and preserving its influence in neighboring Iraq—where the government is under siege by radical Sunni militants—without pushing the confrontation into outright sectarian warfare.

For the second straight week, influential clerics, who are appointed by the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, used their Friday sermons to denounce the militant groups and support Iraq’s government. But their speeches steered clear of explicitly encouraging individual Shiites to act against the Sunni insurgents.

“We are ready to help Iraq as they ask for help,” Ayatollah Mohammad Saeedi told thousands of Iranians gathered for Friday prayers in Qom, Iran’s religious capital.

The country has openly sent top military advisers to help the Iraqi government, and blamed a collection of foreign enemies from Saudi Arabia to Israel and the U.S. for the violence. It deployed at least three battalions of elite Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, according to Iranian security officials—an action Iran’s foreign ministry denied.

Yet it has stopped short of sending in large numbers of its own troops and discouraged ordinary Iranians from crossing the border to fight or defend holy sites in Iraq. [Continue reading…]

Al Jazeera reports: An Iranian pilot has been killed while fighting in Iraq, in what is thought to be the first military casualty that Tehran officially acknowledged during battles against Sunni fighters led by the Islamic State group.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency said on Saturday that Colonel Shoja’at Alamdari Mourjani was killed while “defending” the Shia Muslim holy sites in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said there were no reports of a plane being shot down in Iraq and the pilot probably died while fighting on the ground. [Continue reading…]

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Iran and Saudi Arabia in secret talks to replace Maliki

The Times reports: Iran is sending officials to Saudi Arabia for secret talks about replacing Iraq’s embattled prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, with a compromise candidate who might broker a political solution to the deepening crisis there.

The move towards co-operation by the two regional enemies reflects growing alarm at the situation in Iraq, where lightning gains by the al-Qaeda splinter group Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis) threaten both countries. Saudi Arabia deployed 30,000 extra troops along its border with Iraq yesterday after Baghdad pulled its forces out of the area, leaving the world’s largest oil producer to defend its frontier alone.

The move by Iran’s President Rouhani to solicit Saudi backing for a compromise candidate is a remarkable step, given the enmity between the two powers, but reflects the desperation in both capitals. With Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish government taking steps towards declaring full independence, it falls to Tehran and Riyadh to break the political deadlock in Baghdad.

Iran has been Mr al-Maliki’s principal backer since he took power in 2006, but has reluctantly conceded that he must step aside to save Iraq from implosion. After years of discrimination against Iraq’s Sunni and Kurdish minorities by his Shia-led government, Mr al-Maliki is considered too widely hated to lead the country out of crisis.

Tehran is therefore ready to ditch the prime minister and has drawn up a list of potential replacements. Saudi Arabia, the dominant Sunni power in the region, has said it will urge Iraqi groups it can influence to join a unity government, but only if Mr al-Maliki goes. [Continue reading…]

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Iran’s role in Syria

Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, directors of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver, interviewed by IranWire:

How does the Syrian opposition interpret Iran’s involvement in Syria?

Nader Hashemi: The Syrian opposition understandably views Iran as an enemy state, which is the biggest backer and sustainer of Assad’s criminal enterprise. The fingerprints of the Islamic Republic are all over the atrocities in Syria. The full story of Iran’s involvement in Syria has yet to be told. If we ever get to the point where there’s a full investigation, we’ll likely see that Iran’s involvement has been much larger and more significant than has been publicly admitted and reported. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that Bashar al-Assad is hugely in debt to the Iranian regime for its survival, increasingly so as the conflict has gone on.

Danny Postel: The Hezbollah’s Syrian surge, for example, in 2013, was critical. It came at a time when Assad was very vulnerable, and that’s why Hezbollah was drawn in. And we now have reports of Iraqi fighters in Syria, which Iran has played a direct role in, and Afghan fighters.

Hashemi: There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago reporting that the Iranian government is paying a $500 bribe to Afghan Shia refugees in Iran to fight in Syria, which is quite revealing. This suggests that the Syrian regime does not have enough troops to do its fighting, and must rely on external forces to do its dirty work. It also suggests that the Assad regime is not as strong as it, and its backers, claim it to be. It does have a weakness in terms of fighters, otherwise why would you have thousands of Hezbollah troops doing some of the regime’s heavy lifting?

If you read the Iranian press, one month ago, the Iranian deputy foreign minister Amir Abdollahian was giving a talk at the University of Tehran where he admitted publicly that Assad was about to fall, and then Iran stepped up its involvement to save the regime. That most likely happened in late 2012 or early 2013, when it looked like the regime was on very shaky ground.

Iran is invested in supporting the Assad regime right till the end, and they’re doing it not for reasons of religious doctrine or political ideology. It’s pure realpolitik. The Iranian regime realizes that the survival of the Assad regime is central to Iran’s national security and defense doctrine — particularly with respect to Israel. If there’s a toppling of the Assad regime, Iran’s regional clout — specifically its access to Hezbollah — diminishes significantly. [Continue reading…]

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The enemy of your enemy isn’t your friend, but you can have an affair with him

Maziar Bahari and Reza HaghighatNejad write: Every few days a crowd gathers at the Leadership Complex in central Tehran, chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Hypocrites.” The group varies in size: sometimes there are hundreds of people, and other times only a handful. Supporters range from prominent government officials to farmers from remote villages. But everyone who attends these ritual gatherings is rewarded in some way. It might be extra food rations or a higher government position. People at risk of losing their jobs might be told their positions are now secure. What’s important to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is to have his supporters there with him, lending further legitimacy to his words. Whatever they may be.

Last week, during a ceremony attended by Iranian judges and prosecutors, Khamenei expressed his doubts on Iran’s potential cooperation with the U.S. in Iraq. He accused the American government of exploiting the advances made by extremist Sunnis in Iraq to gain control over the country. As his audience sat before him, many of them crossing their hands over their crutches or their chests — a very Iranian sign of submission — Khamenei said that the current crisis had nothing to do with the sectarian divide between Shia and Sunni Muslims. The crowd chanted on cue. The Ayatollah added, “Americans are trying to undermine the stability and the territorial integrity of Iraq, in which the last remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime are used as proxies and those formerly outside this network of power are treated as pawns.”

Khamenei’s words were echoed by his supporters, who see the rise of the extremist Sunni group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS, as an important threat to Iran’s dominance in Shia-majority Iraq. “After the victory of the Shias in Iraq, Arab countries, America and Israel started causing trouble because they were not happy with a Shia democratic government in Iraq,” said Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, former Chief Justice of Iran. “The people of Iraq should remain united,” he said. “Only the U.S. would benefit from a split.” Shahroudi’s comments are particularly important because he was born and raised in Iraq, and was among the leaders of the opposition against Saddam Hussein. He is also widely regarded as Khamenei’s mentor.

Khamenei’s supporters call him “The Leader of All Muslims around the World.” The gist of their conspiracy theories is that the whole world is united to undermine Khamenei’s leadership. The U.S. presence in Iraq and the region is regarded as the main challenge to dominance in Iraq, but they also include ISIS in an American scheme against Iran. “Command centers for the ISIS fighters were in the White House and Saudi Arabia,” said a revolutionary guards commander, and a Khamenei appointee. “The ISIS conflict is an American and Zionist conspiracy to reverse Islamic awakening in the Middle East,” added another appointed commander. [Continue reading…]

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The ISIS threat: How great is it, who should respond, and how?

The crisis in Iraq can be resolved quite easily. All we have to do is master time-travel.

There are differences of opinion on whether or not history has to be reversed back to 2003 or 1914, but either way, the ability to go back into the past is key.

If time-travel can be accomplished through an act of will, we can remain hopeful that this great challenge will soon be surmounted. After all, there is a growing movement of people who clearly want to re-live the past, so maybe we can all soon get back there, reverse the mistakes which were made and reset history on a more reliable course.

Meanwhile, just in case the time-travel solution happens not to bear fruit, it might be worth considering some kind of Plan B.

Among young Americans — those whose interest in the future can be assumed to be far greater than their interest in the past — the World Cup is apparently almost twice as interesting as events in Iraq. Maybe the 2018 World Cup in Russia will be a game-changer on the geopolitical landscape.

Maybe the assessment that the danger posed to America by ISIS is now greater than that posed by Al Qaeda in the summer of 2001 is an overstatement. After all, while Al Qaeda’s focus was on provoking and challenging American power, ISIS is much more intent on establishing and expanding its caliphate than in seeking military engagement with the U.S..

The fact that ISIS has already drawn the support of hundreds of Westerners flooding initially to Syria, does not necessarily mean many of these individuals will be returning to their countries of origin to engage in terrorism. After all, one of their favorite ways of declaring their commitment to their Islamic state is to destroy their passports. With a measure of realism, they seem to be showing that they have already arrived in the place where they expect to fight and die.

Among critics of the war in Iraq there seems to be far greater concern about the danger of the U.S. once again becoming militarily engaged in Iraq, than there is concern about ISIS. Indeed, few seem to want to say much about the group other than assert that it wouldn’t have come into existence had it not been for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. True. But the invasion did happen and ISIS does now exist and is growing in strength — and the clock cannot be turned back.

Claims that ISIS poses a threat to the world may be viewed with some justified skepticism, but when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says that the group now threatens every state in the region, that sounds to me like an accurate assessment.

Iraq is a state on the brink of collapse. The Kurds are already constructing their own borders and there are no indications that a unifying government can be formed in Baghdad.

Military intervention by Russia and Iran might save Maliki yet destroy Iraq.

That an Iranian general has already promised to use “the same winning strategy used in Syria” sends a chilling message to Iraq’s Sunni population as a whole.

Americans who imagine that so long as our borders are secure, we can ignore what happens elsewhere in the world are living in denial about the interconnected planet on which we live.

Anti-interventionists who imagine that the only issue that matters in relation to Iraq is that the U.S. not get sucked in, are unwilling to confront the fact that ISIS will have to be confronted.

If you want to place your confidence in Russia and Iran, then remember Grozny and Aleppo and picture what might become of Mosul.

ISIS could not have advanced this far without the support of a wider Sunni insurgency and rather than the Russians, Iranians, Maliki’s security forces, Shia militias, or the U.S., it is the Sunnis who need expose the fact that this newly constructed Islamic state has no real foundations. But this isn’t going to happen without Iraq’s Sunni population receiving a tangible reward. The longer that takes to materialize, the less chance there is that it’s going to happen.

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U.S. reluctance to intervene in Iraq may have unintended consequences for Israel

A week ago Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to like the idea of a conflict between ISIS and Iran — a conflict in which the United States should refrain from becoming aligned with Tehran.

“Don’t strengthen either of them. Weaken both,” Netanyahu said.

He may have imagined his anti-interventionism would resonate with several constituencies in the U.S.. But he couldn’t have imagined what might happen next.

With the U.S. reluctant to intervene on behalf of Maliki, he has turned to both Iran and Russia both of which have stepped up to provide military support. Iran may have already conducted air strikes in Iraq.

Now comes a twist which — if the reporting is accurate — will shock the Israelis: a significant boost to Iran’s air force.

David Cenciotti, a highly respected aviation blogger, reports:

On Jul. 1, all the seven operational Su-25 Frogfoot attack planes operated by the Pasdaran (informal name of the IRGC – the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution) have completed their deployment to Imam Ali Airbase where they will join the ex-Russian Air Force Su-25s already delivered to Iraq in the air war against ISIS (Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).

The aircraft (three Su-25UBKM and four Su-25KM jets, according to ACIG.org sources) will be operated by four Iraqi pilots and 10 Iranian pilots.

The aircraft and support to fly them would be part of a military contract (backed by the U.S.) according to which Iran’s IRGC Air Force will receive six Su-30K multirole jets destined to Iraq.

The Su-30K is one of the best Russian combat jets available and would present a significant extra layer of defense for Iran in the event that Israel ever considers attacking Iran’s nuclear installations.

Meanwhile, a Bloomberg report on Obama’s lack of options in Iraq alongside Russia and Iran’s growing involvement, notes:

The swift action by two of America’s adversaries has prompted Obama’s critics in Washington — and even some members of his administration — to argue that the U.S. must act quickly to avert an extremist takeover of a country it invaded and occupied for more than eight years.

Obama’s ability to influence events in Iraq is limited, though, according to a U.S. intelligence official.

Two U.S. administrations have inspired distrust among both Shiites and Sunnis by invading in 2003, then failing to stabilize the country or compel Maliki to stop his revenge campaign against Sunnis, and finally withdrawing and leaving a polarized state at the end of 2011, the official said.

Now, the administration is exploring a three-pronged strategy, according to U.S. officials involved in the effort. It consists of providing Maliki’s government with limited military aid, pressing him to step down or agree to a more inclusive government and trying with Saudi Arabian assistance to pry Sunni tribesmen away from their de facto alliance with the Islamic State.

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Bomb ISIS or we’ll ask Iran to do it, top Iraqi politician warns U.S.

Mehdi Hasan reports: One of Iraq’s most senior politicians has warned that the country could ask Iran to carry out air strikes against the jihadist group, Isis – if the United States continues to refuse to do so.

Speaking exclusively to The Huffington Post UK, Dr Haider Al-Abadi, a member of the Iraqi parliament and a spokesman for Prime Minister Noori Al-Maliki’s Dawah Party, said the Iraqi authorities feel so threatened by Isis “that we will take any assistance, even from Iran”.

It is believed to be the first time such a senior Iraqi politician has publicly raised the spectre of full-scale Iranian military involvement inside Iraq – in the absence of US military action.

“We are waiting for the Americans to give us support,” he said. “If US air strikes [happen], we don’t need Iranian air strikes. If they don’t, then we may need Iranian strikes.” Turkish air support could also be considered, he added. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS becomes ‘The Islamic State’ as it declares: Mission accomplished

If George Bush’s 2003 “Mission Accomplished” speech came to epitomize the hubris of the neoconservatives as they foolishly celebrated victory in Iraq, the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi seems to have out-Bushed Bush in his arrogance this weekend as he anointed himself the new global leader of Muslims and head of “The Islamic State” (which has dropped the parochial limitations of “Iraq” and “Syria”).

ISIS becomes IS or TIS?

In the media, the struggle for acronym domination might continue between ISIS and ISIL, in large part because the White House remains an ISIL holdout (remember how long U.S. government agencies stubbornly insisted on inserting u-s-a into “Usama bin Laden”?) but I expect that “ISIS” will continue as the most widely used label.

The success of the ISIS marketing campaign can be credited in large part to the willingness of the media and many governments to overstate the strength of the jihadist organization, but the susceptibility of ISIS to be seduced by its own hype is evident in the speed with which it has declared the creation of its caliphate.

The Associated Press reports Abdel-Rahman al-Shami, a spokesman for the Army of Islam in Syria, pouring scorn on ISIS’s announcement.

“The gangs of al-Baghdadi are living in a fantasy world. They’re delusional. They want to establish a state but they don’t have the elements for it. You cannot establish a state through looting, sabotage and bombing.”

While most analysts are inclined to look at ISIS’s recent successes through an ill-defined prism of “jihadism,” what might be increasingly applicable is an understanding of the dynamics of cult psychology.

Cults derive their cohesive strength by maintaining rigid boundaries between insiders and outsiders, through the contempt with which they view the unenlightened, and by the unswerving obedience which each cult member displays towards the cult’s strict hierarchy and the absolute authority of the cult leader.

In the short term, these mechanisms of group cohesion solidify the power of the leader, but the exceptional level of solidarity found inside cults eventually becomes their undoing. They purge themselves of the homeostatic mechanisms which provide reality checks inside ordinary social groupings. An absolute intolerance for any form of dissent means that the cult leader becomes increasingly susceptible to miscalculations.

When al-Baghdadi declared himself the “caliph,” who could question his authority, his timing, or his judgement without risking their own life?

He might now relish the power he experiences in the doubt-free environment of his followers, but the throne upon which Baghdadi now thinks he sits, is, as the Army of Islam’s spokesman says, a product of fantasy.

The willingness of ISIS to trade in fantasies may explain some of its appeal to children.

A correspondent for Niqash reports:

The customers standing in Haj Hamdoun’s store in central Mosul watched as a masked child came into the shop, buy what he wanted without saying a word and then leave again, carrying a bag containing candies and milk in one hand and a heavy machine gun, that was just about as big as him, in the other.

This was Abdullah, who is apparently the city’s youngest volunteer with the Sunni extremist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS, that took control of Mosul over two weeks ago.

Abdullah is not yet 11 years old. But his older brother and his father, who was a senior member of ISIS, were killed in fighting between the extremist group and Iraqi security forces in 2013. That’s why Abdullah joined ISIS.

The storeowner, Hamdoun, says he has actually become used to seeing Abdullah wandering around, carrying his big gun with both pride and difficulty. He has also seen the boy on guard duty together with other ISIS fighters in front of the new ISIS headquarters in Mosul, originally the home of a government official.

A curious bystander wanted to start a conversation with Abdullah. “I have a son your age but he’s not eager to carry arms,” the man said. “He spends most of his time on the computer.”

A tall, overweight gunman, who seemed to be responsible for the child, answered on Abdullah’s behalf. “Our children don’t waste time on electronic games or on watching cartoons,” he said. “They have a dream and their dream is to establish an Islamic state.”

The gunman patted Abdullah’s shoulder. “We have a lot of hope for Abdullah and other children his age,” the gunman continued. “We believe they will conquer all of Iraq and Persia and that they will liberate Jerusalem.”

While ISIS might be poised at the brink of self-destruction, imploding as a result of its own hubris, the United States could unwittingly save Baghdadi through an ill-judged intervention.

As J.M. Berger notes:

The prospect of a U.S. military intervention, most likely in the form of air strikes, was already problematic. While there are many who understandably favor hitting ISIS in order to deny it control of territory in Iraq, such a strike would bestow on ISIS the one thing it has until now been unable to definitively claim—legitimacy. A potential new line of jihadist argument then emerges: The caliphate was restored, but it was directly destroyed by the United States.

While President Obama has often been trigger-happy when it comes to the use of drone warfare, he is also a man who generally follows the path of least resistance.

At this juncture, with the mood across America being overwhelmingly opposed to intervention in Iraq, the risk of political gifts to ISIS coming in the form of Hellfire missiles is not as great as might otherwise be.

At the same time, to hear Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri, deputy joint chief of staff of the armed forces and a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officer, say that Iran is ready to provide Iraq with “the same winning strategy used in Syria” offers reason to fear that ISIS’s enemies risk turning a crisis into a catastrophe.

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Iraq’s Sunni leader vows to fight ISIS, after Maliki is gone

Mark MacKinnon reports: The head of Iraq’s largest Sunni tribe says the uprising that has seen militants conquer much of the west and north of the country will not end until Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is gone from office.

Sheikh Ali Hatem al-Suleimani, the head of the powerful Dulaimi tribe that has been in open revolt against Mr. al-Maliki’s Shia-dominated government since last year, said the West needs to see the Sunni offensive as a broad rebellion by an “oppressed” people, rather than focusing only on the extremists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that have been the spearhead of the lightning advance towards Baghdad.

He said ISIL – whom he scornfully referred to as “terrorists” – made up just 7 to 10 per cent of the total number of Sunni fighters, and that their role in the uprising had been exaggerated by “social media, Facebook and Twitter.” ISIL has used YouTube and social media accounts to spread often-grisly videos of its advance through the cities of Mosul, Tikrit and Samarra, apparently seeking to both gain new followers and intimidate its opponents.

Sheikh al-Suleimani said that while ISIL and the tribes – along with remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party regime – shared common cause in wanting to oust Mr. al-Maliki, there was no formal alliance between them. He promised that once Mr. al-Maliki was gone, and the Sunni uprising had achieved its other aims – including a new constitution that would see Iraq made into a federal state, with Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions that would have wide autonomy – the tribal fighters would turn their guns on ISIL and defeat them. [Continue reading…]

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Many Iranians want military to intervene against ISIS

The Guardian reports: Merila, 30, has no love for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but she is so alarmed by the Sunni Muslim militants battling to control neighbouring Iraq that she wants her country’s military to bring the fight to them or risk war at home.

Merila teaches English to young children in a day-care centre in Saadatabad, west Tehran, but her usual peace of mind has deserted her. “Isis is really frightening, and I’m scared,” she said. “I feel like they could pose a serious threat to us.”

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, follows a virulent form of Sunni Islam that is deeply hostile to Shi’ism, the majority sect in both Iraq and Iran. Isis has publicised its execution of Shia Muslims after its capture of cities in northern Iraq including Mosul, the country’s second largest.

In pressing on towards Baghdad, Isis has threatened the Iraqi government, which is led by Shia Muslim parties and which has turned to its ally Iran, as well as the United States, for help.

For many Iranians, events have brought back memories of the “imposed war” of 1980-88 when Saddam Hussein unleashed Iraq’s powerful army against Iran. Even those not old enough to remember air-raids and mass casualties at the front have grown up in a society scarred by that conflict. [Continue reading…]

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Rouhani defends right of young Iranians to express joy and happiness

Azadeh Moaveni reports: Iran may have lost to Argentina thanks to a Lionel Messi strike in the dying seconds of their World Cup match on Saturday, but that didn’t stop the Tehran street party that rattled the authorities. Large numbers of Iranians converged on the streets, dancing on overpasses, overrunning major thoroughfares, chanting and blaring music out of cars, in an outpouring of popular celebration that prompted the authorities to send plainclothes security agents on motorbikes through the crowds to disperse them. Riot police had locked down thoroughfares like Tehran’s busy Parkway intersection, but young people flooded into side streets to carry on their festivities, buoyed by the Iranian national soccer team’s strong showing against top-ranked Argentina.

Most neutral commentators concurred that the Iranian team had mounted a superb effort and had been unlucky to be denied at least a draw against the two-time World Cup champions. “This dignified loss means more to us than any win,” said one young man dancing with his friends on the street.

Despite the heavy police presence across the city, the unexpected outpouring for Team Melli — as the national soccer team is known — stayed strictly in the spirit of fun. Young peopled flew the Iranian flag from their motorbikes and chanted their thanks to individual players, but their commotion carried none of the political overtones of past public celebrations around the World Cup. Instead, most seemed content to have Team Melli project a new image of Iran to the world, that of a moderate, soccer-loving nation, progressive enough to have an endangered species, the Asian cheetah, on its team uniform. “The national team and their fans can both improve Iran’s reputation, and if the government cooperates and doesn’t crack down, that will boost people’s sense of hope,” said Ali, a 28-year-old event manager. “Iranians are more depressed today than any other time, so a little bit of happiness can make it better.”

It’s precisely that prospect of hopefulness, though, that some say led the Iranian regime to deliberately stanch public excitement in advance of the World Cup. Security authorities took the unprecedented step of banning the broadcast of matches in public cinemas and cafés, effectively barring Iranians from experiencing the matches as collective events. [Continue reading…]

As CNN reports, that ban was not effectively enforced:

As the Associated Press reports, the popularity of a World Cup video led to arrests in Iran.

Iranian police have arrested three people who appeared in an online video of young men and women singing and dancing in support of the country’s World Cup football team, the official IRNA news agency reported Monday.

Provincial police chief Col. Rahmatollah Taheri was quoted as saying the video clip, produced by the London-based Ajam Band, features scenes from outside and inside Iran, including the city of Shahroud, where two 23-year-olds appearing in the film and a 26-year-old photographer were arrested.

The video shows young people, including women not wearing the mandatory headscarf, singing and dancing in support of Iran’s national team, interspersed with footage from matches. They are shown waving Iranian flags and dancing in cars, streets, homes and public parks.

Taheri called the video “vulgar” and urged the youth not to take part in such activities. The official said those arrested have been referred for possible prosecution.

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U.S. and Iran each operating surveillance drones over Iraq

The New York Times reports: The United States has increased its manned and unmanned surveillance flights over Iraq since ISIS swept across the north of the country, and is now flying about 30 to 35 missions a day. The American flights include F-18s and P-3 surveillance planes, as well as drones.

Iran has mounted a parallel effort, according to American officials. It has set up a special control center at Al Rashid airfield in Baghdad, and is flying its own small fleet of Ababil surveillance drones over Iraq, said one American official.

An Iranian signals intelligence unit has been deployed at the same airfield to intercept electronic communications between ISIS fighters and commanders, said a second American official, who also declined to be named because he was discussing classified information.

While Iran has not sent large numbers of troops into Iraq, as many as 10 divisions of Iranian military and Quds Force troops are massed on the border, ready to come to Mr. Maliki’s aid if the Iraqi capital is imperiled or Shiite shrines in cities like Samarra are seriously threatened, American officials say.

“Iran is likely to be playing somewhat of an overarching command role within the central Iraqi military apparatus, with an emphasis on maintaining cohesiveness in Baghdad and the Shia south and managing the reconstitution of Shia militias,” said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar.

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