US-Iran ISIS Cooperation, the View from Tehran

The possibility of Iran and the United States to cooperate in confronting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been widely covered and analyzed by the media, especially in the West. But how is the prospect viewed inside in Iran?

Over the past two weeks most of Iran’s senior military and political officials in Iran have been expressing their views about the ISIS case, and most recently Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announced his opposition to any American intervention. But despite his forceful remarks over the weekend, it seems Iran’s political establishment is seriously weighing the possibility of some cooperation.

President Hassan Rouhani has said that Iran is ready to cooperate with the U.S. against ISIS. He said that he is not aware of how Washington plans to respond, but that if there is a plan in place then some cooperation is conceivable. He described ISIS attacks as a conspiracy against the government of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and said those who have lost in the elections are trying to win by resorting to terrorism.

In a phone conversation with Maliki, Rouhani said that Iran would use all means at the international and domestic levels to confront groups such as ISIS.

The Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif welcomed the American approach for fighting terrorism as a common goal. At the same time he emphasized that Iran had not sent any troops to Iraq.

Rouhani’s First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri whose appointment as Iran’s UN envoy was vetoed by the United States tweeted that Iran and the U.S. are the only two countries that can solve the Iraqi crisis in the most peaceful manner.

Ali-Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister who is now Khamenei’s international affairs advisor, did not reject the possibility of Iran-U.S. cooperation but said that it must an indirect one.

The parliamentary Research Center which is run by figures close to Speaker Ali Larijani published a report which described the ISIS threat to the Shi’as as very serious and asked Iran to cooperate with all countries that can play an effective role in solving the crisis.

But there are other influential figures  in Iran who do not see any prospect of cooperation between Iran and the U.S. One is Rear-Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, who called any cooperation “unrealistic”. He accused America of using violent extremists to portray Islam as violent and inhumane, and to deny the people of Iraq and Syria their legitimate interests.

His views were echoed by General Hassan Firoozabadi, the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces. He called cooperation with America “meaningless” and said that “the American military interference in Iraq would be for illegitimate purposes. They want to nullify Iraqi elections and we must disregard their crocodile tears.”

Firoozabadi also denied that Iran has dispatched military personnel to Iraq. These repeated denials are contrary to numerous reports in the past weeks that Ghasem Soleimani is in Iraq to help the fight against ISIS.

Also a pointing finger America was General Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards. He said that the activities of ISIS in Iraq  had resulted from American interference and the collusion of its allies in the region.

An American-Zionist Conspiracy

Mohsen Rezaee, Secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council which advises the Supreme Leader on all branches of the government, said that Iran would not stand on the sidelines while the US muddied the region. He called ISIS an American and Zionist scheme to roll back Islamic awakening in the Middle East.

These views have supporters in the parliament as well. Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, the spokesman for the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee described the crisis in Iraq as an American-Israeli conspiracy against Iran. The Americans, he maintained, “talk about a political conversation to ensure that ISIS remains in Iraq.”

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian accused the United States of trying to recreate the Syrian civil war in Iraq and entangle this country in a war of attrition.

Occupying the middle ground of these positions, President Rouhani’s Chief of Staff Mohammad Nahavandian said that if any cooperation in Iraq is to take pace, the U.S. must first show its good intentions in the nuclear negotiations.

This dissonance of views among Iranian authorities across the political establishment and the military clearly shows that Iran has yet to arrive at a consensus on cooperating with America. The reformist figures close to Rouhani’s administration want to use the chance to get Iran closer to the US, while hardliners in the government believe that Iran should send positive signals to America but avoid direct cooperation. Not surprisingly, most military and hardline figures are suspicious of American intentions and are against cooperation in Iraq.

The only point on which all agree is supporting Maliki. Iran is not as supportive of the Iraqi prime minister as it is of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but its support can result in a serious disagreement with other countries over hammering out a political compromise to end the crisis.

The Islamic Republic and the United States do have a history of cooperation in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Iranian authorities have always said that they cannot trust the Americans and cannot believe their promises of positive results from such cooperation.

In his memoirs titled “Mr. Ambassador,”  Foreign Minister Zarif writes about when Americans were taken hostage in Lebanon. When the first Bush was president “the Secretary-General of the United Nations sent us messages saying that if we help to secure the release of the hostages the Americans will show their ‘good intentions’ by which he meant Iranian assets would be unblocked and other things. When three of the American hostages were released Secretary-General’s envoy in Tehran informed President Hashemi Rafsanjani that the US could not fulfill its promises.’

In recent years Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly reproached the reformists for cooperating with Americans in the 2001 multinational Bonn Conference on Afghanistan when in 2002 George W. Bush described Iran as part of “Axis of Evil”. He believes that this shows Americans were not sincere, and exploiting Iranian help without any recompense.

Iranians do not expect Obama to behave like Bush and do not have the intent or even the means of supporting Nouri al-Maliki the way that are backing President Assad, but the fact is the skepticism over American goals in the region persists. Iran is still following its dreams for extending Shi’a dominance in the region and the fight goes on.