Iran: In It to Win It in Iraq

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The American Interest:

An Iranian Brigadier General was buried in Tehran today after reportedly being shot by a sniper in Iraq. The Financial Times reports:

Brigadier General Hamid Taghavi [was] the highest ranking Iranian military official to die in neighbouring Iraq, amid signs of Iran’s increasingly open involvement alongside a US-led coalition fighting Sunni extremists.

The general was the most senior member of Iran’s armed forces to die abroad since the Iran-Iraq war ended 26 years ago and was known for three decades of intelligence work inside Iraq.

A Revolutionary Guard statement said the 55-year-old was killed in the Iraqi city of Samarra — site of a Shia shrine and a strategically important centre considered crucial for protecting Baghdad and preventing other Shia shrines in Karbala and Najaf from falling to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis.

Both America and Iran are involved in the effort to drive ISIS back and support the government in Baghdad. As such, there is a tacit alliance—but it is not one of equals. As the old saying goes, it’s like a ham and egg sandwich: the chicken is involved, but the pig is really committed. Today, unlike 10 years ago, Iran is the pig.

This is proving increasingly problematic as, as The Washington Post reports, American officials are beginning to contemplate the scale of the Iranian backed militias in Iraq, which may now equal the regular army (which also leans Shi’a) in total size.

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