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Soleimani meeting Guard Corps cadets
Long War Journal: IRGC tries to appropriate Mosul victory
The Islamic Republic of Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are running a propaganda campaign to appropriate victory in Mosul and the broader war against the Islamic State as their own, and omit US military support, which has been critical in the campaign.
The Guard Corps and the US at times coordinated directly or indirectly during the war, but Iran continues to reject the US’ presence in the Middle East.
Addressing the Revolutionary Guard’s Imam Hossein Guardianship Training and Officer University, Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani this week again peddled the conspiracy theory that the US and Israel created the Islamic State and fanned the Iraqi and Syrian wars to “bring Iran to its knees” and “destroy the Islamic revolution.”
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WNU Editor: This "taking credit" appears to be working .... Iran And Iraq Sign Deal To Boost Military Ties (July 23, 2017).
9 comments:
US military support, while not nominal, was far from "critical." Iran's support was far more important.
Throughout the campaign, I patiently asked here, elsewhere, and I posed the questions to our elected leaders "is it wise to lend assistance to mortal enemies of Iran and ISIS?' Might we better off to stay out of this while these two mortal enemies tear each other apart?" Had we simply stayed out altogether ISIS ultimately gets defeated, however, it takes longer and our enemies in Iraq and Iran will have had more casualties.
Maybe it was better to have assisted them but no one in power even asked the questions. Now Iraq has been handed to Iran on a gold platter. If course Iran was always going to be the ultimate controlling force in Iraq but perhaps it would have been better for them to have been bloodied and bruised while achieving this.
A very knowing acquaintance told me the day that Bush invaded Iraq...There goes Iran to take over the entire area. Iran held in check by Iraq. By invading Iraq because they had "WMD" we crushed that nation and unleashed pit bull Iran.
Fred,
That analysis seems pretty much spot on. At a minimum, any invasion of Iraq should have used enough combat personnel to ensure this could not happen. Since such a force structure was not available, it could not be prevented and since everyone has "WMD" a very bad decision indeed. It's amazing the number of bad decisions the US government has made in recent decades. With that said after one bad decision it is generally not advisable to follow these up with even more bad decisions.
Bad decision: Invading Iraq in 2003. Bad decision (probably): getting involved to fight ISIS in Iraq. A better choice may have/probably would have been to allow bitter enemies to tear one another apart. Instead Iran has been handed Iraq on a golden platter. Bad decision: supporting and perhaps even sponsoring a coup against the elected government in Ukraine and supporting the replacement of this government with one hostile to Russia following this up with sanctions against Russia essentially going out of our way to provoke a new cold war with a nuclear armed super power. Bad decision: blaming Russia for "meddling" in the election without proof except "just trust us" thereby ratcheting up tensions even further in a conflict we don't need. Bad decision: "pivot" to South east Asia inflaming tensions with China. Perhaps it never occurred to someone that Chinese cooperation is going to be crucial to ensuring a soft landing when the US dollar loses its role as world reserve currency. Bad decision: toppling the Libyan government of Khaddaffi. This is doubly stupid on the part of the Western Europeans as they lost good oil deals in this debacle.
I could go on. suffice it to say a number of bad decisions have been made of which Iraq 2003 is one of many.
I should add the invasion of Serbia in the mid 1990s essentially setting up an Islamic extremist enclave in the heart of Europe was an especially bad idea. To not include this would be remiss.
It was the Spanish civil war redux.
Since you are talking about the bad decisions that US made, please let me remind you the worst decision we made was; we did not support Shah in 1978 and Iran went to the hands of Khomeini that unleashed the Russia's invading Afghanistan and rise of extremists.
Please remember Iran was a close friend of Israel and balance point of ME.
yeah, that was the worst decision the US did.
When the US incited, then abandoned and betrayed the Shia and Kurdish uprisings after the end of the Gulf War,
That gave Iran a foot in the door,
Every bone assed American Exceptionalist move in the ME, by the US and it's allies, from the Sanctions, Dubya Dubya Me Too, the CPA, the Confessional List's System, GCC funding and arms for AQI, the Lebanon War, The Yemen War, Quatar,
The creation of the Kingdom of Rubble,
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176310/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_bombing_the_rubble/
Iran has skillfully filled all the voids created by the US and their Allies, shooting themselves in the foot, over and over again.
At this point on time, one would actually have to wonder if those, past and present, running the US and it's Allies ME Policy, arn't Iranian deep cover sleeper agents,
https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/872062159789985792?lang=en
Somebody should check his taxes.
At this point in time, everybody in Iraq and Syria knows, that the only reason that most of ISIS were destroyed in the rubble of Mosul, is that the IRGC trained Iraqi Shia Militia's, ignored the US Commands, closed the road to Raqqa, rather than letting ISIS escape to Syria.
Nope, in regards to Iran, it was toppling the democratic government of Iran, and installing the Shah, in the first place.
There was nothing the US and Britain could have done to prop up the Shah, when is own Military and Police wouldn't support him, and the psychopaths of SAVAK were too busy stuffing gold and gems in suitcases and fleeing Iran, one step ahead of the Shah.
The US could have had a better post Revolution reset with Iran, if they had let the Shah seek medical treatment in Switzerland or one of the other countries who have a niche industry supplying medical treatment to despots and ex-dictators,
But instead, the US took him in, so of course, the Mullah's won the political infighting post Revolution, over the reformers.
Jay, I beg to differ, we help the beast as we do it now by helping house of Saudis:
US had extensive contact with Ayatollah Khomeini before Iran revolution
Documents seen by BBC suggest Carter administration paved way for Khomeini to return to Iran by holding the army back from launching a military coup.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/10/ayatollah-khomeini-jimmy-carter-administration-iran-revolution
Revealed: Iran’s Khomeini had secret dealings with US in 1979
https://intelnews.org/2016/06/06/01-1915/
Lotta maybe's and may's built in a story around a few US Cables, suggesting that Kohmehni wasn't writing "Death to America, Death to Israel" letters to the US, when he was in exile in France.
Historic timelines of events are important when evaluating "new disclosures" that may or may not amount to disinfo,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Iranian_Revolution
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