Make no mistake: the war everyone fears is already here

Make no mistake: the war everyone fears is already here

Peace and a new beginning are not on the horizon





War must be averted. This is the appealing narrative, the glue that has held the theater of the Iran nuclear negotiations together for more than a decade as Western and UN powers try to talk it out with the Islamic Republic in Geneva.

It makes sense, in its own right, as nobody should want a war—as in a confrontation where bombs are falling, cities are destroyed and a lot of people end up dead. The Obama Administration has been steadfast in presenting war as the only alternative to the marathon talks, a dire warning from a president who won the Nobel Peace Prize supposedly because his commitment to diplomacy would save the world from witnessing future Iraq scenarios. God forbid that should happen again, right?

But hold on there. Putting aside the fact that President Obama bungled an invasion of Libya and unleashed anarchy that is drowning thousands of fleeing refugees by the boatload, the idea of a grand bargain with Iran is an illusion, or worse, a deliberate deception. For all the song and dance in Switzerland, for all the talk of moderates, hardliners, and the deal of a lifetime, the war everyone thinks they are avoiding is already here. On one front after another, the Middle East is on fire—and behind many of them is the hand of the Shiite-Islamist Iranian regime, the same one making a lot of promises to diplomats all too eager for their own shot at the Peace Prize.

Syria has been reduced to rubble as Iran holds the line for dictator Bashar al-Assad

Evidence considered it is difficult not to notice this. Syria has been reduced to rubble as Iran holds the line for dictator Bashar al-Assad in his battle against an uprising, the country transformed into a ravaged hell that has produced more refugees than almost any other conflict since the Second World War. Next door, Iraq has been reignited after a period of relative calm that made it safer than many Latin American countries. In Yemen—the country cited by President Obama as the model for solving the new, before mentioned Iraq crisis—civil war rages in the streets as Iranian-backed rebels advance, the US presence on the ground heads for the hills, and starvation threatens millions. Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah rule the Gaza Strip and Lebanon respectively, sitting atop a massive arsenal of weaponry that can spark a conflagration with rivals or Israel at any moment. All this is going on while Iran itself ramps up executions and leaves anti-government activists rotting in jail—under the “moderate” president, Hassan Rowhani.

Syria is probably the most ghastly of all these horror shows, where inaction and in most cases a chilly silence prevails as Syrians are butchered daily in triple digit figures—some in their homes, some in schools, and others on the street trying to shop for vegetables. Are these not the kind of images, the idea of suffering on everyone’s minds when we shudder at the thought of a possible war with Iran? The driving force behind this relentless slaughter has been Assad’s punishing air raids, backed up by a conglomeration of Shiite warlords and torturers from across the world, all organized and supported by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) forces. For a quarter century Assad and his family have been an essential tool of Iran’s leaders, and their efforts to preserve that influence and keep him in place long after the official “Syrian Army” was defeated have taken a devastating toll on the human race.

Certainly, the anti-Assad forces on the ground, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and others, have committed their own atrocities at times. But none of the weaponry they possess comes close to the scorched-earth destruction unleashed by Assad’s aerial assassins, some of which has been documented in the stunning photos of decimated districts in the central city of Homs such as Khalidiyeh and Baba Amr, or throughout the traumatized northern city of Aleppo where barrel bombs fall from the sky more often than rain.

In reality, the only other actor that comes somewhat close to matching Assad’s reign of bloodshed is the Islamic State (IS) or ISIS—who are often described as an anti-government, Sunni-Islamist rebel faction, despite their limited interest in battling regime forces. It should be noted and never forgotten that practically all of the territory IS holds in Syria today was taken at the expense of Assad’s FSA opponents, and that the IS predecessor—Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)—used Syria as a staging ground for its war against Iraq during the US occupation. Despite this, some US politicians—including Senator Rand Paul and his father, Ron—continue to present Assad as some kind of secularist bulwark against terrorism and violent Islamism. It is grossly flawed logic, but like former secretary of state Hillary Clinton calling Assad a reformer in 2011 after years of evidence to the contrary, it always finds a way to come full circle after unraveling.

Iraq: where Iranian-backed Shiite militias have been looting, burning, and killing their way through northern towns like Tikrit

As for Iraq, where Iranian-backed Shiite militias have been looting, burning, and killing their way through northern towns like Tikrit, things aren’t much better. While the headlines are ever-focused on IS—who rule in both Iraq in Syria, as is widely known—they spend less time reminding the audience that it was the sectarian nature of former prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki and his government’s drift toward the Iranian axis that enabled the rise of this infamous group. IS, then AQI, was almost entirely defunct between 2008 and 2012. This however did not stop Iraqi security forces from opening fire on Sunni demonstrators when they used the momentum of the Arab Spring to press legitimate demands, a repression that culminated in a protest camp massacre in April 2013 that left dozens dead and helped instigate today’s chaos.

Yemen: the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state grappling with its own disintegration


Meanwhile, there is Yemen: the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state grappling with its own disintegration that could eventually make it the Arab Spring’s worst disaster. Shiite Houthi rebels are continuing an offensive against a relatively new recognized government that came to power after protesters threw out the country’s longtime dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, with Sunni Arab Gulf states struggling to stop them through a limited and ongoing air campaign. The Houthis—who shriek anti-American, anti-Semitic slogans as they conquer cities alongside military units still loyal to Mr. Saleh—have torn up a series of peace agreements that President Abdrubbah Mansour Hadi practically begged them to sign and have taken over the US Embassy, along with an unknown number of classified documents and convoys of equipment. As the fighting spreads south and along the coast, key transport infrastructure and ports have been rendered inoperable, prompting a growing humanitarian catastrophe that United Nations observers warn will threaten much of the Yemeni population.

Though some Iranian officials deny accusations they are backing the Houthis, it seems that General Qassem Soleimani—a top commander in the elite Quds Force of the IRGC that the regime and some analysts credit for preserving Iran’s interests in Iraq and Syria—failed at internalizing this memo, as he has been on record and in public bragging about how the Houthis’ rise is an extension of the 1979 Revolution, most prominently at a series of pro-government rallies marking the anniversary of this revolution on February 11. Tehran City Representative and close confidant to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Alireza Zakani, also couldn’t contain his excitement, declaring with glee that the Yemeni capital Sana’a—which was captured in September—was the “fourth Arab capital” Iran has under its control after Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut.

Obama: Unshackling an undeserving regime from its pariah status, leaving friends and allies twisting in the wind as it consumes them piece by piece

All this said and detailed, the point here is not a suggestion that negotiating with the Iranian regime is outright wrong. Rather, it is to reveal that true and effective negotiations would have addressed the Islamic Republic directly while checkmating its regional ambitions—which was easily doable, and for the most part in place before some very disastrous decisions were made, mainly on the part of the Obama Administration as it sought to charm Iran. Maintaining a US presence in Iraq, relying on honest Kurdish forces instead of ultraviolent Shiite radicals to confront the IS, reaching out properly to the secular opposition in Iran, and turning military hardware loose on the Houthis early in their advance all would have gone a long way toward doing so—as would the implementation of even a partial no-fly zone to stop the unmitigated killings in Syria.

At first deal proponents would hear none of this. But after months of wrangling President Obama has finally agreed to grant Congress a say on the final draft of an agreement with Iran that will be appearing in a matter of weeks, meaning there is still time to do the right thing. Otherwise, a president who hides behind the phrase “don’t do stupid stuff” will conclude his final term in office by unshackling an undeserving regime from its pariah status, leaving friends and allies twisting in the wind as it consumes them piece by piece.


By Corey Hunt