Another American Foreign Policy Mistake; This Time in Iraq.

As the media reveal, the US has begun to sell some
AGM-114 Hellfire missile (air -to- surface) and ScanEagle drone to Iraq. The consequences of this deal would not be beneficial for the US, Iraqi people and the Middle East based on some reasons including:

1- Everybody knows that Nouri Al Maleki is the puppet of the Islamic Regime in Iraq. From this, we can deduce that the US is transferring these high tech military equipment indirectly into the hand of the Islamic Regime. As such, we should expect that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its subset the Quds Force will be able to use these weapons or their technologies in different parts of the Middle East and North Africa somewhere in the future.

2- In reality, Iraq is a failed state. The shaky, vulnerable and weak political system in this country does not have proper control over much of its territory including in its capital Baghdad. The lack of a democratic and stable political system has created a chaotic environment in Iraq. There are increasing numbers of sectarian violence between different criminal-religious- fundamentalist groups including Al Qaeda's affiliates in the country. In such a chaotic environment, there is high probability that some of these criminal or fundamentalist groups will get access to these high-tech military equipment in the future. We should not forget that those Stinger Missiles that the US handed to Taliban to use them against the Soviet forces, were used later by Taliban against the US and its allies forces in Afghanistan. 

3- In addition, Iraq is experiencing a devastating civil war in one of its neighboring countries i.e. Syria. If the international community would not be able to find a fundamental solution for the Syrian civil war as soon as possible, sooner or later, the three countries of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq would be dragged into a catastrophic conflict between different religious and fundamentalist groups, much more than what we are experiencing at the present time; a type of deeper regional conflict.     
The policy-makers in the US should pay little attention to the consequences of this deal in the long term. However, the decision & policy- makers in the US might think that with this type of incentive they would be able to ease the tension in Syria or achieve a better position with regards to Iran's nuclear negotiation. In this respect, I can say: you are completely in the wrong direction.


M. Sirani                            28.12.2013