Waqar Rizvi 12 mins · Tehran, Iran · Shamus Cooke: ISIS is a Frankensteinan monster raised by the Gulf state monarchies and aided and abetted by the Obama administration... Obama’s bloody fingerprints are all over this unfolding crime, which is why the U.S. cannot be relied on to have any positive impact. The U.S. government is incapable of using foreign policy in a helpful way. Indeed, the U.S. government prioritizes U.S. interests, which have continually led to the train wreck that is currently the Middle East. Obama’s humanitarian assistance in Syria is what led to the disaster now infecting Iraq. Any U.S. intervention will also empower ISIS, since the majority of Iraqis want U.S. soldiers out of their country, and more U.S. soldiers will simply push the broader Sunni population into the arms of the Islamic extremists. The Shia religious community of Iraq cannot save Iraq for similar reasons. The greater that the Shia community comes together to face ISIS, the more sectarian ammunition ISIS will have to agitate the broader Sunni community, who would otherwise be repulsed by ISIS’ ideology. The lunatic sectarianism of ISIS cannot be countered by a sectarian response without further dragging the country into chaos. For similar reasons the Iranians can be no real help to the situation. Iran is in many ways the leader of the world’s Shia community, and thus despised by the Sunni extremists leading the revolt in Iraq. Any Iranian intervention will only help ISIS attract more recruits. Iran also has its own geo-political interests, which often prioritize brokering a peace/nuclear deal with the U.S. while Iraq and Syria are used as bargaining chips... To fight the ideology of religious-ethnic division that is destroying the Middle East, a countervailing force is required which unites, that has the potential to unify the vast majority of people against the minority of economic-religious elites who pursue this destructive divide and rule strategy. Sunnis, Shias and Kurds have more in common than differences, but their differences are being preyed upon and exacerbated by religious-corporate elites who profit by maintaining their despicable leadership over these communities. Unity is possible when common interests are focused on, such as the dignity that all people desire that requires a decent, job, education, housing, health care, etc. A political vision that prioritizes these needs can create a new progressive movement, much like the pan-Arab socialist revolutionary movements that transformed the Middle East in the 1950’s and 60’s. But this means that the U.S. government, with its imperialist interests, must not be allowed to intervene. The Middle East elites used ethnic and religious divisions and foreign intervention to defeat the pan-Arab movement, but the outcome for the Middle East has been nonstop catastrophe. The Middle East cannot be saved outside of a new ideology of political and economic unity, similar to the principles that drove the revolutionary pan-Arab socialist movement in the past. counterpunch.org/2014/06/25/who-will-save-iraq/
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 20:55:20 +0000
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