- AP Photos
- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that the United States is talking with Iran about the latest insurgency in Iraq.
The first time I heard of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria was last week. The group had swept through smaller Iraqi cities and was threatening Baghdad. Iraq was in chaos.
“With just a few thousand fighters, the group’s lightning sweep into Mosul and farther south appeared to catch many Iraqi and American officials by surprise. But the gains were actually the realization of a yearslong strategy of state-building that the group itself promoted publicly . . .
How long have Iran and the U.S. been thinking about making common cause? I have a feeling the subject didn’t just come up. The two countries have been talking for months about Iran swearing off nuclear weapons in return for an end to economic sanctions. Was the U.S. truly so oblivious to ISIS that these Sunni terrorists never crept into the conversation?Here’s Jonathan Schanzer of the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies sounding a variety of alarms. He tells the Wall Street Journal that ISIS is a jihadi organization “that appears to really not have anything standing in its way,” certainly not the weak-willed Iraqi army. Yet he thinks America is nuts to look to Iran “as a potential partner to help stabilize the region.” “Extremely ill-advised,” says Schanzer. “I couldn’t think of a worse partner for this. . . . Looking for answers from terrorist organizations [Iran] is just not the way to bring stability at this volatile moment.”
