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Jefferson23

(30,099 posts)
Tue Jun 17, 2014, 02:52 PM Jun 2014

Iran and America in Iraq: a Great Rapprochement, or Hot Air?

RUSI Analysis, 17 Jun 2014 By Shashank Joshi, Research Fellow

The crisis in Iraq appear to have united the US and Iran against the jihadists of ISIS. But claims of a historic rapprochement, let alone collaboration, are wildly overblown.

The crisis in Iraq has given rise to widespread anticipation that the US and Iran, both fearful of further gains by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), will work together. The Guardian reported that bilateral talks in Vienna constituted ‘the first time the two nations have collaborated over a common security interest in more than a decade’, the Independent breathlessly spoke of a ‘historic rapprochement’, and the Times’ headline read ‘US turns to Iran’.

These claims are wildly overblown. They reflect the unrealistic aspirations of those who would wish to see a new order in the Middle East – a resurrection of the purportedly missed ‘grand bargain’ between the US and Iran in 2003 – and the fears of those who oppose such realignment. In truth, US-Iran interaction in the coming weeks and months is likely to be more prosaic.

Ironically, the US last meaningfully cooperated with the Islamic Republic in 2010, when both sides worked towards the installation of Nuri al-Maliki as Iraqi Prime Minister, the man whose policies lie at the heart of Iraq’s disintegration. The two sides collaborated more substantively before that in 2001, when Iranian officials shared intelligence on the Taliban and took the remarkable step of offering to work under US command in rebuilding the Afghan army.

This level of cooperation will not be repeated. US officials have already ruled out ‘military coordination or strategic determinations about Iraq’s future over the heads of the Iraqi people’. Although Iran’s political and security leadership appears to be slightly more divided on the issue, Ali Shamkhani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), has argued that ‘such suggestions [of collaboration] are untrue and amount to psychological warfare’ and that assistance to Iraq ‘will be bilateral and will not involve a third country’. Those expecting intelligence sharing, or even nothing more than regular contact between Iran’s reportedly 200-strong contingent of Revolutionary Guard in Baghdad and the US’ existing Office of Security Cooperation or its newly-arrived Marines will be disappointed.

US and Iranian views of Iraq:
in full: https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C53A0274764986/#.U6CNlLFA2zL
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