Iran Strongly Rejects Deploying Troops in Iraq

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian categorically rejected a Wall Street Journal report alleging that the country has dispatched military forces to Iraq to fight against the Al-Qaeda-backed militants in there.
Amir Abdollahian’s remarks came after the American newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, in a report claimed that Tehran has sent two elite units of its Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) to Iraq to fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) terrorists – an Al-Qaeda offshoot.

“The dispatch of Iranian military forces to Iraq is not true,” Amir Abdollahian stressed in remarks to FNA on Friday.

The Iranian deputy foreign minister also stressed Iraq’s strong military capabilities, and reiterated that Iraq’s armed forces are powerfully fighting against the ISIL militants.

Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari did not confirm the WSJ report when asked if Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was entering the fight.

“Frankly I have no idea about that. I am in London now,” he told the WSJ in a phone interview.

In Tehran, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afgham had already stressed that Iran is not involved in the clashes in Iraq, saying, “Until now we haven’t received any requests for help from Iraq. Iraq’s army is certainly capable in handling this.”
Political analyst Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm told FNA on Friday that “such reports are aimed at provoking the Sunni population in the region to rush into Iraq to escalate the present clashes into a Sunni-Shiite Armageddon.”

“The West and its media outlets have been seeking hard to stir sectarian strife among Islamic sects for centuries now, and ever since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, these plots and efforts have been aimed at provoking the Muslim Shiites and Sunnis into confrontation and war in a bid to stop the growing influence of Iran in the region and the world,” he added, reminding how the US provoked former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to wage war on Iran in the 1980s and how Washington and its western and Arab allies flooded Baghdad with their financial and military backups to annihilate the Islamic Revolution or contain its growing clout.

“Despite the continued emphasis of senior Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, on the necessity of Muslim unity against such plots, and despite a similar performance of the Islamic Republic in dealing with regional developments, which could be readily seen in its supports for Sunni Palestinian resistance movements like Hamas, some extremist Salafi and Takfiri movements nurtured by few regional states have walked along the path prescribed and desired by the West and opted for confrontation, not just against Shiites, but against anyone, including other Sunni groups, standing on their way, forgetting their arch foe, the Israeli regime,” he added.

Khoshcheshm said such western plots can easily be seen in their media outlets. “Although everyone now knows that the war in Syria is not at all rooted in Sunni-Shiite differences – as you can see the ISIL is fighting against government troops, secular forces among the opposition, the Free Syrian Army, and even the hardline Sunni group, the Al-Nusra Front (the Al-Qaeda’s official branch in Syria) – the same American paper, the WSJ, released a report by the same writer, Mrs. Farnaz Fassihi, last month trying to inspire its readers with the wrong image that the war in Syria is a sectarian, ideological clash between Shiite Iran and Sunni groups in the region.”

Khoshcheshm then reminded how the WSJ article which alleged the IRGC was recruiting Shiite Afghan refugees for war against Sunni anti-government rebels in Syria, was immediately rejected by not just the Iranian Foreign Ministry officials, but also the Afghan foreign ministry and specially by a main source mentioned in the report, that is the ‘office of Grand Ayatollah Mohaghegh Kabuli, a religious leader for the Afghan community in the Iranian holy city of Qom’, which had been alleged to be the source of the details of the story.

“Once the report appeared on some western media,” Khoshcheshm added, “Grand Ayatollah Kabuli issued a statement to refute the claim, saying ‘the news published by BBC…citing Western newspapers saying that the office manager of Ayatollah Kabuli confirmed Afghan refugees are dispatched to Syria by the Revolutionary Guards, I deny’,”.

Elaborating on why the US and its media, including the WSJ, are striving to fabricate reports on Iran’s military presence in regional clashes, the political analyst said, “While the western states, including the US, have condemned the ISIL terrorist moves in Iraq, their main allies in the region have not only voiced support for the terrorist groups, including the ISIL, but provided it with financial and logistical backups and much more”.

“There is a strong body of evidence to prove such regional supports for the ISIL, including Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s recent complaints in this regard. Just yesterday, the daughter of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein declared that she has joined the ISIL and appreciated Saudi Arabia and Qatar for their fervent and non-stop supports for the ISIL,” he added.

“Following the United States’ empty-handed withdrawal from Iraq and, in the next few months, from Afghanistan, the Obama administration has been under strong criticism for its humiliating retreat and leaving the region to Iran’s growing influence after incurring billions of dollars on taxpayers and sustaining so many American casualties,” he said.

“The worries have grown even more for the US and its regional Arab allies after they found themselves surrounded by the tidal waves of Islamic Awakening (also known as the Arab Spring). Thus, Washington and its regional allies have resorted to nurturing extremist groups to overthrow Iran’s allies to stop or, at least, slow down Iran’s growing influence without involving the US in such interfaith clashes on the surface,” Khoshcheshm said.

“That’s why the US condemns the ISIL raid on Baghdad in words, but it says it will not target the terrorist group by its drones which have been killing tens of innocent civilians in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen under the pretext of war on terrorism,” he continued.

The analyst cautioned that the US strategy for stirring sectarian wars and clashes among Muslims in the region and linking Iran to such events will gain momentum through a growing number of unfounded reports in not just the western media, but the media outlets of its regional Arab allies in future to forge a literature on Iran’s involvement and coax radical Takfiri and Salafi extremists into waging a Sunni crusade on Iran.

“After all, divide and rule has always been top on the agenda of the West in dealing with the Middle-East Muslims and it will continue the same policy in future,” he said.

“However, Iran is well informed of these plots, and although it has security and defense pacts with Baghdad, it will not offer unwanted assistance in a bid not to step into this US trap,” he said, and concluded, “Iran has kept its eagle eye focused on enemy moves and schemes, and although it has underlined its strong stand against terrorist and extremist movements, it avoids any move which could widen the gaps among Muslims as it has long intended to usher the worldwide Muslim community into strong unity and solidarity.”