Beware of ISIS, Iran’s prez warns ‘petrodollar’ states
24 Jun 2014 4:26 AM IST
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani warned on Sunday that Muslim states which funnel petrodollars to jihadist Sunni fighters wreaking havoc in Iraq will become their next target. Rouhani did not name any country, but officials and media in mainly Shiite Iran have hinted that insurgents from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are being financially and militarily supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
‘I advise Muslim countries that support the terrorists with their petrodollars to stop,’ Rouhani said in remarks reported by the website of Iran’s state broadcaster. ‘On Monday you will be targeted... by these savage terrorists. Wash your hands of killing and the killing of Muslims,’ he added. ISIS militants have seized a swathe of Iraqi territory in a lightning offensive, with the Baghdad government’s security forces hard-pressed to prevent the advance.
Riyadh has warned that Iran-ally Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is steering Iraq towards civil war through policies that exclude the country’s Sunni minority. Iran, the predominant Shiite powerhouse in the Middle East, says it will support Maliki against ISIS, which is also battling the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, another Tehran ally. Rouhani called for unity between ‘Shiites and Sunnis who are brothers’. ‘For centuries, Shiites and Sunnis have lived alongside each other in Iran, Iraq, the Levant, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf and North Africa... in peaceful coexistence,’ he said.
Since ISIS began its Iraq offensive, Tehran has urged Iraqis to unite against the jihadists. ‘The Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are our friends,’ parliament speaker Ali Larijani said in remarks reported on the Majlis website. ‘We have always insisted that all ethnic groups must have active and constructive participation in Iraq’s power structure.’
Iraq crisis offers hint of vindication for Joe Biden
Washington: As Iraq edges toward chaos, US Vice President Joe Biden is having a quiet moment of vindication for a grim forecast that was dismissed by the Bush administration. In 2006, Biden was a senator preparing for a presidential campaign when he proposed that Iraq be divided into three semi-independent regions for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
Follow his plan, he said, and US troops could be out by early 2008. Ignore it, he warned, and Iraq would devolve into sectarian conflict that could destabilise the whole region. The Bush administration chose to ignore Biden. Now, eight years later, the vice president’s doom-and-gloom prediction seems more than a little prescient. Old sectarian tensions have erupted with a vengeance as Sunni militants seize entire cities and the United States faults the Shiite prime minister for shunning Iraq’s minorities. While the White House isn’t actively considering Biden’s old plan, Mideast experts are openly questioning whether Iraq is marching toward an inevitable breakup along sectarian lines.
‘Isn’t this the divided Iraq that Joe Biden predicted eight years ago?’ read an editorial this week in The Dallas Morning News.
If there’s a measure of vindication for Biden, it’s come at the right time. After staking his claim to leadership on foreign policy, Biden has watched his record come under sometimes bruising criticism, including former Defence Secretary Bob Gates’ insistence that Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy decision in four decades. And as he contemplates another presidential run, Biden’s political clout has been eclipsed by that of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Biden’s office declined to comment. ‘He’s been right,’ said former Sen Ted Kaufman, the longtime Biden aide and confidant who replaced him in the Senate. ‘But you’ll be hard pressed to find an ‘I did this’ or ‘I did that.’ He’s not an ‘I told you so’ kind of guy.’
‘I advise Muslim countries that support the terrorists with their petrodollars to stop,’ Rouhani said in remarks reported by the website of Iran’s state broadcaster. ‘On Monday you will be targeted... by these savage terrorists. Wash your hands of killing and the killing of Muslims,’ he added. ISIS militants have seized a swathe of Iraqi territory in a lightning offensive, with the Baghdad government’s security forces hard-pressed to prevent the advance.
Riyadh has warned that Iran-ally Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is steering Iraq towards civil war through policies that exclude the country’s Sunni minority. Iran, the predominant Shiite powerhouse in the Middle East, says it will support Maliki against ISIS, which is also battling the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, another Tehran ally. Rouhani called for unity between ‘Shiites and Sunnis who are brothers’. ‘For centuries, Shiites and Sunnis have lived alongside each other in Iran, Iraq, the Levant, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf and North Africa... in peaceful coexistence,’ he said.
Since ISIS began its Iraq offensive, Tehran has urged Iraqis to unite against the jihadists. ‘The Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are our friends,’ parliament speaker Ali Larijani said in remarks reported on the Majlis website. ‘We have always insisted that all ethnic groups must have active and constructive participation in Iraq’s power structure.’
Iraq crisis offers hint of vindication for Joe Biden
Washington: As Iraq edges toward chaos, US Vice President Joe Biden is having a quiet moment of vindication for a grim forecast that was dismissed by the Bush administration. In 2006, Biden was a senator preparing for a presidential campaign when he proposed that Iraq be divided into three semi-independent regions for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
Follow his plan, he said, and US troops could be out by early 2008. Ignore it, he warned, and Iraq would devolve into sectarian conflict that could destabilise the whole region. The Bush administration chose to ignore Biden. Now, eight years later, the vice president’s doom-and-gloom prediction seems more than a little prescient. Old sectarian tensions have erupted with a vengeance as Sunni militants seize entire cities and the United States faults the Shiite prime minister for shunning Iraq’s minorities. While the White House isn’t actively considering Biden’s old plan, Mideast experts are openly questioning whether Iraq is marching toward an inevitable breakup along sectarian lines.
‘Isn’t this the divided Iraq that Joe Biden predicted eight years ago?’ read an editorial this week in The Dallas Morning News.
If there’s a measure of vindication for Biden, it’s come at the right time. After staking his claim to leadership on foreign policy, Biden has watched his record come under sometimes bruising criticism, including former Defence Secretary Bob Gates’ insistence that Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy decision in four decades. And as he contemplates another presidential run, Biden’s political clout has been eclipsed by that of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Biden’s office declined to comment. ‘He’s been right,’ said former Sen Ted Kaufman, the longtime Biden aide and confidant who replaced him in the Senate. ‘But you’ll be hard pressed to find an ‘I did this’ or ‘I did that.’ He’s not an ‘I told you so’ kind of guy.’
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