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Iran's Shi'ite Militias Are Running Amok in Iraq

(Foreign Policy) Ali Khedery - The Iraqi government is hopelessly sectarian, corrupt, and generally unfit to govern what could be one of the world's most prosperous nations. The U.S. is now acting as the air force, the armory, and the diplomatic cover for Iraqi militias that are committing some of the worst human rights abuses on the planet. These "allies" are actually beholden to our strategic foe, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and often resort to the same vile tactics as the Islamic State itself. The staunchly pro-Iranian Badr Organization commander Hadi al-Ameri - who was welcomed in the Oval Office by Obama in 2011, and is known for favoring power drills to murder his victims - has been tasked with leading all Iraqi efforts to secure and pacify Diyala province. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the alleged mastermind behind the bombing of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in the 1980s, was given command of the Kataib Hizbullah (KH) militia, an Iranian-sponsored group. The former director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, told Bloomberg's Eli Lake that the militias "represent enemies of a stable, secure, and inclusive Iraq," and that once the IS threat is defeated, "they will very likely turn on us." Iraq's battle-hardened militias are the new, much larger, much wealthier Hizbullah. They will haunt the world for decades to come. The writer was a special assistant to five American ambassadors in Iraq and senior adviser to three chiefs of U.S. Central Command from 2003 through 2010.
2015-02-25 00:00:00
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