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Iran's "Boots on the Ground" in Iraq Could Backfire on U.S. Interests
(Atlantic) Graham Allison - U.S. officials expect that two of America's leading adversaries - Bashar al-Assad's Syria and Iran - will intensify their war against ISIS. Both rightly see ISIS as an imminent or even existential threat to themselves. In Iraq, when ISIS' advance threatened the Kurdish capital of Erbil, the first to come to the rescue was Iran. Who is guarding Iraq's two holiest Shiite cities, Karbala and Najaf? Units of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The most potent Iranian military advisor to groups directly fighting ISIS on the ground is Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, who was responsible for so many American combat deaths during the Iraq War. Suleimani controls Iraq's three most powerful Shiite militias (Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Hizballah, and Badr Corps), as well as at least three battalions of Iranian special forces. When ISIS is driven from Iraq, the Shiite militias that have cleared and held territory will not readily relinquish control to others. The writer is director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.