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Thursday, December 11, 2014
It’s a weird war when Iran and the U.S. are bombing the same country
The McDonnell Douglas’ F4 Phantom was a workhorse of the United States
Air Force during the Vietnam War in the 1960s. It was retired from the
USAF and the British Royal Air Force some 20 years ago. But the vintage
fighter-bomber put in a surprise performance a few days ago over the
skies of northern Iraq. Iranian Air Force Phantoms purchased during the
reign of the Shah of Iran, who was overthrown in the revolution of 1979,
attacked Islamic State bases in Diyala province near the town of
Saadiya, on the frontline between Iraqi forces and Islamic State.
Pentagon officials were quick to deny any coordination with the Iranian
strikes. What is beyond any question, however, is that both the United
States and Iran are acting in the same military theatre against a common
enemy. This despite the fact that they have had no diplomatic relations
for more than 30 years and at times have seemed on the brink of war
themselves. While there appears not to have been any direct coordination
between the two militaries, both air forces almost certainly did
coordinate with the Iraqi defense ministry about the attack. This
episode unusual, but it is not unprecedented. Consider that the U.S. Air
Force and the Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Air Force have been attacking
the same target — the Islamic State controlled city of Raqqa, in the
east of the country. Two weeks ago, the two air forces bombed the city —
which is the only provincial capital not in government hands — within
days of each other. It is interesting to note that Syrian Air Force
attacks on Raqqa have been few and far between since it fell, on Jan.
12, to Islamic State. Are both the Iranians and the Syrians attacks an
opportunistic attempt to underline the common enemy that they share with
the United States? Other members of that coalition will have concluded
that they are, and will have viewed these developments with concern, if
not anger. At the commencement of the U.S. coalition attacks on Islamic
State, several Gulf air forces participated, including the United Arab
Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Their participation since has been less
evident. And there can be little doubt that the Syrian aerial attack on
Raqqa and the Iranian attack on Diyala will be viewed with grave unease
among the U.S.’ allies in the Gulf especially if, in the case of Iran,
an unspoken alliance with the United States emerges as a result.
Cooperation between Iran and the regimes in Damascus and Baghdad is
hardly new. In fact, the alliance between Iran and Syria goes back more
than thirty years to the time of Hafez al-Assad, the father of the
current Syrian President. It is a crucial alliance, and without it, Iran
would not be able to support its critically important Lebanese ally,
Hezbollah. Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, lasting more than a month,
could not have been feasible without Iran’s critical arms supplies and
technical assistance to its Lebanese ally. This explains the motive
behind the attack inside Syria by Israeli air force jets on Sunday. The
first strike targeted warehouses believed to be holding Iranian missile
systems destined for the Hezbollah, and a second strike near Dimas, on
the highway between Damascus and the Lebanese border, hit a Hezbollah convoy heading towards Lebanon.
The Dimas raid also hit an airbase that sheltered advanced Iranian
drones. The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it
had received information that several Hezbollah members were killed in
the Dimas strike. The Beirut Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper quoted
unnamed Syrian opposition sources as saying that the targeted area of
Dimas was considered a closed military area under the control of the
Fourth battalion of the government forces led by Assad’s brother, Maher
El-Assad. The attacking aircraft, on both occasions, used Lebanese
airspace as a corridor to get close to their targets the question now is
whether there will be any retaliation for Sunday’s airstrikes by
Hizbullah. The organization has still not commented on the strikes.
Given its heavy military involvement inside Syria supporting the regime
of Bashar al Assad that would seem unlikely. Iran’s close relationship
with Iraq is a result of the Bush Administration’s overthrow of the
regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The removal of the Sunni dictator and
the collapse of a strong Iraqi state led the way to the empowerment of
the Iraqi Shia and a fast developing Teheran – Baghdad axis. Following
the fall of Mosul to Islamic State, the military relationship between
the two capitals has deepened, with both Washington and Tehran competing
to assist the beleaguered Iraqi regime. Iran is known to have supplied
Russian built Sukhoi 25 fighters to Iraq and there is a common
supposition that these may be flown by Iranian pilots. This series of
events will inevitably complicate US relations with its Gulf allies. Now
in its fourth year, the Syrian war shows no sign of resolution and the
emergence of ISIS as a major military and political factor in the Middle
East can at best only be contained. The chances of a diplomatic
breakthrough are close to zero in the Syrian civil war not least because
the biggest loser politically is the opposition Syrian National
Council. As so often in civil wars the extreme parties are dominating
the stage. In 2015 the Obama administration will find let up in
pressures jn the Middle East. PHOTO: A Syrian Air Force fighter
plane fires rockets during an air strike in the village of Tel Rafat,
some 23 miles north of Aleppo, Aug. 9, 2012. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
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