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Title: Why Iran Believes ISIS is a U.S. Creation
Source:
Time (yeah, it still exists in dental offices)
URL Source: http://time.com/3720081/isis-iran-us-creation/
Published: Feb 26, 2015
Author: Kay Armin Serjoie
Post Date: 2015-03-01 08:09:05 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 16952
Comments: 91
Iran has taken a lead role in defending the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and strengthening the Baghdad government in the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). But that doesn’t mean Iran views the United States as an ally in that war, even if they share a common enemy in ISIS. Abdullah Ganji, the managing-director of Javan newspaper, which is believed to closely reflect the views of the government and the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards, says that U.S. support for ISIS is in fact a way of ensuring Israel’s security and disrupting the Muslim world in the cause of advancing Western interests. “We believe that the West has been influential in the creation of ISIS for a number of reasons. First to engage Muslims against each other, to waste their energy and in this way Israel’s security would be guaranteed or at least enhanced,” says Ganji. “Secondly, an ugly, violent and homicidal face of Islam is presented to the world. And third, to create an inconvenience for Iran.” Iran’s relations with the U.S. have been strained since the 1979 Islamic Revolution ousted the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran and negotiations are currently underway between Iran and Western nations, including the U.S., to ensure the Islamic Republic does not produce nuclear weapons. Ganji went on to say that much of ISIS — its propaganda, structure and weapons — were all the work of the West. “A group that claims to be an Islamic one and has no sensitivity towards occupied Muslim lands in Palestine but is bent on killing Muslims as its first priority, it’s not a movement with roots in Islamic history. Not only many of its weapons but its methods of operation, its propaganda methods and many of its internal structures are Western, that’s why we are distrustful of the roots of ISIS,” he says. “As the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] also said, [the coalition forces] have on a number of times even made weapon drops for ISIS. How is it that they have laser-guided precision munitions and bombs but drop weapons for the wrong people? And not only once but at least a number of times,” he says, referring to incidents when weapons dropped from U.S. aircraft landed in ISIS-controlled areas rather than the intended Kurdish-controlled areas. “Iran cannot cooperate with the United States against ISIS because it doesn’t trust America, it doesn’t believe in their honesty in combatting ISIS. Iran can’t trust the U.S. to begin something and to continue to the end. It acts patronizingly and will change its path whenever it feels it is justified. We are also worried that the U.S. is using ISIS as a pretext to return its troops into Iraq,” Ganji says. “I believe that the U.S. prefers a weak ISIS that cannot be a major threat but will still cause inconvenience for Iran, Iraq and Syria and generally what they themselves called the Shiite crescent.” Poster Comment: I've read other reports that, across the Mideast, it is the majority view that ISIS is an American creation. Here, the Iranians make those accusations their official position.
"We believe that the West has been influential in the creation of ISIS"
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#1. To: TooConservative (#0)
The USA stirs up trouble, everywhere. There is no good reason for the USA to be militariy or politically involved half-way around the world meddling in the affairs of others.
I wouldn't go that far. We have always had foreign interests to protect going back to the early decades of the Republic. But that is no excuse to turn the Mideast in a shootout at the OK Corral. The neocons often talk about it in terms of being like the Wild West, like they can just go in and shoot things up and it will all turn out so well ("greeted as liberators", Arab Spring, etc.). They actually discuss it among themselves in these terms. Appalling. And it is an obvious subtext in the warmongering rhetoric we hear from a number of these GOP candidates as they try to win favor (and hundreds of millions) in the Sheldon Adelson Primary. I posted this in response to another poster who was discussing why Shi'a Iran hadn't gotten involved in driving Sunni ISIS from Shi'a Iraq, despite Iran's proximity to Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1670089.stm BBC News Al-Qaeda, meaning "the base", was created in 1989 as Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden and his colleagues began looking for new jihads. The organisation grew out of the network of Arab volunteers who had gone to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight under the banner of Islam against Soviet Communism. During the anti-Soviet jihad Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding. Some analysts believe Bin Laden himself had security training from the CIA. [snip] Counter-terrorism veterans question Obama administration rationale for strikes based on argument that rupture between groups is irrelevant Spencer Ackerman in New York The Obama administration is publicly conflating the Islamic State (Isis) and al-Qaida, taking a legally convenient position for its new war that dismisses a major public split between the two jihadist organizations. While several US officials contend the rupture between Isis and al-Qaida is irrelevant – Secretary of State John Kerry has mocked it as a “publicity stunt” – the administration line undercuts its previous distinctions between al-Qaida’s core leadership, various affiliates and unrelated terrorist groups. Amongst counter-terrorism veterans, the conflation is considered tendentious – and, to some, reminiscent of the Bush administration’s exaggerated linkages between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, part of the language that tried to sell the 2003 Iraq invasion. While Isis began life as al-Qaida in Iraq, al-Qaida’s leadership ultimately renounced all ties and condemned the group in February 2014. It is believed to be the first time al-Qaida has declared itself “not responsible” for a former affiliate. [snip]
I take this as a given. While we can always claim our former allies have suddenly betrayed us, the international arena is full of various players, many with bad intent, with whom an American president may ally himself and which later comes back to bite us in the ass. Noriega was an asset as was Saddam who conducted his war against Iran at our instigation and with considerable direct support, like serving as his AWACs and air control support staff (leading to the tragic shootdown of the Iranian airliner and loss of 300 lives for which we paid reparations but have refused to this day to apologize for). So while it is easy to get conspiratorial over former allies gone bad (from our present perspective), the truth is that history is actually full of temporary alliances of convenience since we all know that old saying that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". But after you and your ally dispatch that enemy and the reason for your alliance ends, you may very well find your former ally has become your new enemy because he is filling the power vacuum left by displacing your common enemy. In this way, the enemy of your enemy can become your new enemy as he fills that political/strategic vacuum that results from the success of your joint operation against a common enemy. Geez, that's as boring as some War College paper and as dry as a Rand Corporation document from the Cold War. But it is still true. We are as subject to these ironic twists as any Great Power has ever been. We are not exempt from history's many ironies. And it does still sound like a lame excuse. It really is part and parcel of being a Great Power and especially for any sprawling intercontinental empire. He utters similarly bizarre remarks all the time. What is really worrisome are the indicators that he actually does believe this, not that he's just lying to the American public again to cover his ass over some shameful and incompetent conduct of foreign policy, like his recent climate change agreement with China or his new awful deal with Cuba.
Are you denying the Doctrine of Exceptionalism?
#12. To: A Pole (#9)
Always have. A famous fake quote attributed to various Brit pols was "Britain has no permanent allies, only permanent interests". This is a shortened misquote of a speech by a lesser-known pol of the 19th century British empire, Henry Temple, Third Viscount Palmerston. Palmerston was the closest thing to a Churchill type in Britain through much of the nineteen century: Wise words. But his attitude toward certain rebellious current and former colonies should curb our admiration for him: Cold-blooded bastige. : ) I like Lord Acton much more.
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#2. To: Pridie.Nones (#1)
There is no good reason for the USA to be militariy or politically involved half-way around the world meddling in the affairs of others.
#3. To: TooConservative, Pridie.Nones (#2)
I've read other reports that, across the Mideast, it is the majority view that ISIS is an American creation.
Al-Qaeda's origins and links
Last Updated: Tuesday, 20 July, 2004, 18:34 GMT 19:34 UK Obama maintains Al-Qaida and Isis are 'one and the same' despite evidence of schism
The Guardian
Thursday 2 October 2014 15.57 EDT
#4. To: nolu chan, redleghunter, Pericles, Deckard, Vicomte13 (#3)
During the anti-Soviet jihad Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding. Some analysts believe Bin Laden himself had security training from the CIA.
Obama maintains Al-Qaida and Isis are 'one and the same' despite evidence of schism
#9. To: TooConservative (#4)
We are not exempt from history's many ironies
Replies to Comment # 9. Are you denying the Doctrine of Exceptionalism?
End Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
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