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ISIS Terrorists: Should Tehran and Washington Cooperate?
(Atlantic Council) Frederic C. Hof - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has served Iran well by (among other things) permitting the Islamic Republic to ship arms to Syria and raise Iraqi militiamen to help Assad wage war. Yet he is now a grotesque liability for one and all. The people Tehran has supported - Assad and Maliki - are the principal authors of political disasters that can undermine Iran's security decisively. If Iran wishes to open the alternative of a political track by obliging its Syrian client to cease its program of mass homicide, it is free to do so. If it wishes to stabilize the area that ISIS wants to turn into a pre-Islamic emirate, it has means at its disposal that require no blessing from Washington and would provoke no condemnation. Secretary of State John Kerry has said: "Let's see what Iran might or might not be willing to do." This is highly preferable to chasing Tehran and begging it to do that which is in its interests anyway. The writer is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.