Don't Expect Much U.S. Military Action in Iraq

The United States is not an egalitarian country. It plays one on TV. But the reality it is corporate-dominated kleptarchy that is only nominally democratic.

Our nominal democracy and vestiges of constitutional protections give us a leg up on the subjects of Saudi Arabia. But in terms of an ally who has a strong voice in the conduct of American affairs, you would be hard pressed to find one greater than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday, when Iranian President Hassan Rouhani proclaimed his country's readiness to intervene in Iraq to protect the Shiite holy sites there, the Saudis responded by issuing a warning against any foreign intervention. Rick Gladstone and Dan Bilefsky report in "Insurgency in Iraq Widens Rivals’ Rift" that

In a televised speech in Iran on Wednesday, Mr. Rouhani expressed full support for the Iraqis who have joined volunteer militias to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Sunni extremist group that straddles both countries. It has seized large sections of northern and western Iraq over the past few weeks, threatened to march on Baghdad and vowed to obliterate cities and shrines dear to Shiites.

“Regarding the holy Shiite shrines in Karbala, Najaf, Kadhimiya and Samarra, we announce to the killers and terrorists that the big Iranian nation will not hesitate to protect holy shrines,” the president vowed in the speech to a crowd in Lorestan Province in western Iran. “These terrorist groups, and those that fund them, both in the region and in the international arena, are nothing, and hopefully they will be put in their own place.”

Mr. Rouhani also said many Iranian volunteers were prepared to travel to Iraq to defend religious sites. He sought to cast them as the allies of patriotic Iraqis from all backgrounds who see the Sunni insurgents as a scourge — a theme he also emphasized in a posting on his Twitter account.

“Iranian nation will protect Iraq’s holy shrines & they aren’t alone. Iraq’s Sunnis, Shias & Kurds all ready to defeat terrorism solidarity,” he wrote.

Mr. Rouhani signaled over the weekend that Iran did not intend to send troops to Iraq. But Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, recently traveled to Iraq to meet with Iraqi leaders, who have mobilized thousands of militia fighters, almost exclusively Shiites. The high-level contact suggested that General Suleimani was helping oversee their training and strategy.

In Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal warned that no outside power should be meddling in Iraq. Coming on the same day that Mr. Rouhani spoke, the clear implication was that the Saudi minister was referring to the Iranians. He said the Iraqis needed to achieve national reconciliation without “foreign interference or outside agendas.”

Prince Faisal's admonition goes for the United States as well. That is why stories that appear in the press regarding Obama's deliberations on the use of force in Iraq always accentuate the limited strategic options he is dealing with. A few drone strikes are usually mentioned. The stories convey no sense of urgency, certainly none of the shrieking that went along with the press's drumbeat for strikes on Damascus last summer. Then it was the entire global order at stake, dependent as it is, or at least thought to be inside the Beltway, on unilateral U.S. belligerence. Here we are only dealing with the realization -- a caliphate rising in northern Iraq erected by a group Osama bin Laden found too extreme -- of the fantasy that Bush-Cheney used to justify their 2003 invasion.

The U.S. and the Kingdom are reading from the same script when it comes to Iraq: the ISIS blitzkrieg is due to the sectarianism of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. This is the talking point that has been reiterated with great discipline since Mosul fell.

Another red flag is that the atrocities and war crimes of ISIS are given short shrift, mentioned only as if in passing. Whereas any Shiite reprisals, such as the 44 Sunni prisoners who ended up shot in an attack on a Baquba prison earlier this week, are labeled "horrific."

Gladstone and Bilefsky mention that

The Saudi kingdom also issued a statement repudiating accusations by Iraq’s Iranian-backed Shiite prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, that it was providing moral or financial support to the Sunni insurgents.

“Any suggestion to the contrary is a malicious falsehood,” the Saudi statement said.

But Saudi sponsorship of ISIS was even acknowledged yesterday by the Gray Lady in her lede editorial: "Turkey, for instance, should shut its border to militants and to materiel flowing into Syria and Iraq. And Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other gulf states need to stop financing (directly or indirectly) ISIS, which began as an Al Qaeda affiliate, and other extremist groups."