The Iranian regime has described Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) terrorists as a "plague” and accused the United States of failing to stop their advance across Iraq. The American-led ouster of Saddam Hussein may indeed have plunged Iraq into chaos, but Tehran's role in perpetuating the disaster in both Iraq and in Syria has done more than anything to foster Daesh terror. By supporting Syria's Basher Assad regime in its effort to bludgeon its population into submission, the Iranians created the space in which Daesh grew, initially as part of the revolution. But it did not take long before this evil spawn of Al-Qaeda threw off its revolutionary mask and began to turn on the real fighters for Syrian freedom. Aided and abetted by elements within Turkey, who did little to curb the cross-border flow of arms and Daesh recruits, drawn from dupes and bigots from all over the world, the terrorists have grown strong sucking on the blood of Syrians who for over four years have longed for peace. Then the scourge spread to Iraq. The head of Iran's foreign military operations Qasem Soleimani was right to describe Daesh as a "plague”. But that was all he was right about. The Iranian regime refuses to acknowledge its complicity in the growth of Daesh. As part of their war against the US “Great Satan”, the Iranians built up the Shia militias whose murderous activities did so much to alienate moderate Sunni opinion, even during the US-led occupation. Then Tehran proceeded to “run” Iraq's corrupt, incompetent premier Nouri Al-Maliki. Seeking to extend its malevolent influence further into the Arab world, the Iranian leadership encouraged Maliki's Shia triumphalism. It sought, with tragic success, to promote policies that rejected an Iraq based on mutual respect for its three core communities, the Shia, Sunni and Kurds. Its purpose was clear from the outset. The last thing Tehran wanted was a united and prosperous Iraq. Iranian interference can even be seen behind the pathetic failure of the Iraqi army to hold first Mosul a year ago and then this month Ramadi. Around 200 Daesh fighters appear to have overcome a defensive force ten times their size. As in Mosul, the regular army in Ramadi abandoned tons of war materiel which will now be used against it by the terrorists. The Iraqi army cut and ran for three reasons. The first was the deliberate campaign of terror that Daesh has pursued with awful success. By beheading or shooting every soldier they capture, the Daesh butchers have undermined the morale of the supposedly highly trained and vastly better equipped regular troops who face them.
The second has been the quality of the army leadership. Most commanders are political placemen selected by the old Maliki government. They are incapable of inspiring their troops to do their duty, simply because the great majority of them are incompetent. They have also failed to build up a warrant officer cadre which can be relied on to lead their men in the tactical business of fighting on the front line. The third reason that Iraqi troops have chosen to flee instead of fighting is that there is little confidence in the political leadership that is expecting these men to lay down their lives for a unified Iraq that now barely exists. Tehran, therefore, has everything to do with Iraq's failure as a coherent multi-community state.
