US should coordinate with Iran in Iraq

Former NATO commander retired US Adm. James Stavridis says the United States should coordinate with Iran in order to overcome ISIL militants in Iraq.

“We’ve got to operate alongside Iranian forces, if necessary, because the greater threat to the United States is the rise of a caliphate, and one that has already sworn ‘to fly its flag over the White House’ — that’s extremely concerning,” he said in an interview with the Military Times on Monday.

“We’re not going to be Iran’s allies in this particular case, we have some common interests. We’re going to operate in the same battle space,” Stavridis explained.

“Therefore, it would behoove us to have at least a minimum of coordination, probably via the Iraqi government and the Iraqi armed forces.”

The ex-NATO commander also noted that Washington should send more ground troops to Iraq to fight the militants.

“I think we probably need triple that with some enablers and conventional protective mechanisms around them,” he said.

“A drone is a wonderful high-level view, but it doesn’t have the feel and the granularity of an observer of the ground,” Stavridis said. “You cannot provide significant defensive positions. You can only knock down incoming offensive capability.”

The US began its airstrikes against the militants on Friday, taking out several of their checkpoints and armed trucks as well as an armed personnel carrier.

However, US Joint staff operations director Lieutenant General William Mayville said the airstrikes are unlikely to affect the militants’ “overall capabilities” or their operations elsewhere in Iraq and Syria.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama reiterated that the US is pursuing “limited military objectives” in Iraq.

The US military announced that it has no plans to expand airstrikes in northern Iraq beyond protecting its facilities and citizens from ISIL.

“There are no plans to expand the current air campaign beyond the current self defense activities,” senior Pentagon official Lieutenant General William Mayville told reporters on Monday.