Summary
Since June, a great deal of international focus
has been on Iraq, where the transnational jihadist movement
Islamic State took over large swaths of the country's Sunni-majority areas and
declared the re-establishment of the caliphate. Despite the global attention on
the country, especially given U.S. military operations against the Islamic
State, U.S.-Iranian cooperation against the jihadist group -- a significant
dynamic -- has gone largely unnoticed. A convergence of interests, particularly
concerning the Iraqi central and Kurdish regional governments, has made it
necessary for Washington and Tehran to at least coordinate their actions.
However, mistrust and domestic opposition will continue hampering this
cooperation.
Analysis
Their 35-year-old mutual enmity
notwithstanding, the United States and Iran have cooperated against a common jihadist
enemy in the past, such as when they worked together to topple the Taliban
regime following the 9/11 attacks. Relations quickly soured again when U.S.
President George W. Bush's administration declared the Islamic republic a part
of the "axis of evil" and when controversy over Tehran's alleged
nuclear weapons program broke out in 2002. However, these tensions did not
prevent the two sides from cooperating again in the U.S. move to effect
regime change in Iraq in 2003.
For Iran, Washington's decision to topple
Iraq's Baathist government was a godsend; it turned Tehran's biggest national
security threat into a major geopolitical opportunity. The Iranians did
everything they could to facilitate the ouster of the government led by Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein. In these efforts, the United States' Iraqi partners
-- for instance, the Shia and Kurds -- had long been proxies of Iran. These two
communities, which had been disenfranchised for decades under a Sunni-dominated
order, received support from Washington and Tehran, first to topple the old
order and then to form a Shia-dominated state in which the Kurds had
considerable autonomy.
Throughout the nearly nine-year U.S. military
presence in Iraq, Iran and the United States engaged in a long, complex game of
cooperation and competition. At one point, back-channel talks were
insufficient, and Tehran and Washington engaged in direct public talks about
the future of Iraq's post-Baathist republic. Now, as the state jointly
fashioned by the Americans and Iranians faces its greatest challenge since the
end of the Sunni insurgency in 2007, it is only natural that the two powers
join forces once again to meet the common threat. Tehran and Washington's concerns
about the Islamic State transcend Iraq's borders and include common interests
elsewhere in the region. The on going process of rapprochement facilitates such joint action. Thus,
the geopolitical context for U.S.-Iranian cooperation is quite favorable.
The principal negotiators who engaged in back-channel diplomacy in Oman after the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of the Islamic State were Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran's deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, and Jake Sullivan, adviser to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. The United States and Iran worked behind the scenes to replace outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom Washington and Tehran hold responsible for the political crisis in Iraq. Tehran and Washington have also been working together to ease tensions between the Shia and Sunnis, as well as between Baghdad and Arbil. That said, Washington and Tehran know that managing political feuds among Iraq's three principal ethno-sectarian groups, while necessary, will not be sufficient. The Islamic State poses a military threat to Iraq, and neither the Iraqi military nor the Kurdish peshmerga forces are in a position to fight back. Effective operations against the Islamic State will require Washington and Tehran to support their common allies in Iraq and engage in direct military action.
The principal negotiators who engaged in back-channel diplomacy in Oman after the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of the Islamic State were Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran's deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, and Jake Sullivan, adviser to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. The United States and Iran worked behind the scenes to replace outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom Washington and Tehran hold responsible for the political crisis in Iraq. Tehran and Washington have also been working together to ease tensions between the Shia and Sunnis, as well as between Baghdad and Arbil. That said, Washington and Tehran know that managing political feuds among Iraq's three principal ethno-sectarian groups, while necessary, will not be sufficient. The Islamic State poses a military threat to Iraq, and neither the Iraqi military nor the Kurdish peshmerga forces are in a position to fight back. Effective operations against the Islamic State will require Washington and Tehran to support their common allies in Iraq and engage in direct military action.
Although they are working together, Washington
and Tehran cannot be seen as openly cooperating. The administrations of U.S.
President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani already face considerable domestic opposition to their difficult
negotiations over the nuclear issue, but the problem goes beyond that
opposition. There is genuine mistrust between the two countries that limits the
extent to which they can cooperate against the Islamic State -- especially in
the areas of military and intelligence. Neither side wants to reveal its assets
or processes to the other.
This mistrust makes it very difficult, for
example, for the Quds Force -- the overseas arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps -- and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security to work
comfortably with the U.S. military's Central Command and the CIA. This is why the
two sides are likely to be coordinating their respective moves instead of
working closely together. In fact, Stratfor has learned that Washington and
Tehran agreed on the limited force the Quds Force has deployed in Iraq's Diyala
province to fight alongside Kurdish peshmerga forces against the Islamic State.
While the United States deployed several
hundred military advisers to Iraq after Mosul fell to the Islamic State, the
Quds Force has long maintained a presence in Iraq -- one that it has been
reinforcing since the rise of the Islamic State. Because U.S. and Iranian
military personnel are working with the same set of Iraqi actors, the two sides
occasionally step on each other's toes. Enhancing the Iraqis' capacity to face
the threat requires that U.S. and Iranian personnel accommodate each other to
avoid such a situation.
Though the Iranians have been running a limited
number of air sorties in Iraq, the bulk of Tehran's efforts will be
ground-based, whether they involve actual troops engaged in combat and
supporting Iraqi forces or the mobilization of militias. The United States will
largely be engaged in air operations, given the domestic aversion to sending in
ground troops. This works well for both sides; the Iranians do not have the air
assets that the Americans do, and having the Iranians focus on ground
operations serves the United States' interests.
This does not mean that either side will get comfortable with this working
relationship. However, the situation in Iraq is driving the United States and
Iran toward cooperation. There are many reasons why this is likely to remain a
tactical arrangement, especially when it comes time to confront the Islamic
State in Syria, where the two countries' interests do not
align.
"In Iraq, the United States and Iran Align Against the Islamic State is
republished with permission of Stratfor.",
August 22, 2014
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