This brief post is to let all readers know about a noteworthy news item from the torn-apart Mideast in case you didn’t see it in your media outlets. Iran and America have become de facto allies in the war against ISIL, whether they wanted to become allies or not. In previous posts, I’ve cited links which indicated that the Iranian military was fighting inside Iraq against ISIL forces. It has now been officially confirmed. In the first link and second link, there are notices about a senior Iranian commander, a general, being killed in a war-zone north of Baghdad where Iraqi soldiers were fighting ISIL forces. The links give the same story, but I enclosed two news sources as citing the same facts to buttress the story’s credibility.
Obviously, if an Iranian general was involved in a battle with ISIL forces deep inside Iraqi territory, he was not there alone. There had to be other Iranian soldiers there as well who would be accompanying an Iranian general. It is also noteworthy that this was an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general. The Revolutionary Guard forces within Iran are deemed the most loyal to Iran’s ruling mullahs and receive the best weaponry. The regular Iranian army is generally regarded as less reliable to the Iranian regime and it gets lesser-quality war material. In previous posts, I’ve reported that an Iranian army armored division, equipped with obsolete tanks, was positioned northeast of Baghdad in case they were needed to defend that city. That a Revolutionary Guard general was killed inside Iraq indicates Iran has committed some of its elite forces to defeating ISIL inside Iraq and defending the Shiite region of southern Iraq. That this is now being openly admitted by Iranian sources further indicates that Iran is very committed to making sure the Shiite central government of Iraq survives to remain an ally of Iran. Iran no longer cares if the world knows its forces are fighting inside Iraq.
There is another aspect to this story that adds another chapter in the bizarre history of strange alliances in the Mideast. The nations or entities allied together to do serious battle with ISIL include the USA, the Sunni Kurds, Shiite Iran and the Shiite-central government of Iraq. The USA supplies tactical airstrikes while the Kurds, Iraqis and Iranians provide “boots on the ground.” Occasionally, the air forces of Saudi Arabia, Jordan or the UAE do fly a sortie vs. ISIL targets, but they are reportedly few in number (a Jordanian warplane was shot down a few days ago). I heard and saw one “talking head” on a cable-TV news program state that 97% of the “coalition” air strikes are being conducted by the USA. Some time ago, the news media reported that the UK, France and Australia had sent warplanes to fight ISIL targets on the ground. Someone ought to launch a search party to see what happened to those warplanes. No one has heard from them since to my knowledge. Apparently they were sent to the region in a “show the flag” mission, not to conduct any serious missions.
The third link has an assertion that directly relates to this topic, but it well worth your reading in its entirely. It is written by a Mideastern Arab columnist whose piece about the state of the Mideastern Arab and extended Muslim nations contains excellent and insightful analysis. Outside of Tunisia, which just conducted a successful democratic election, the entire region is sliding into chaos and some Islamic nations are disintegrating. He asserts that in Iraq, pilots of the US Air Force and the Iranian Air Force have actually divided up Iraqi airspace for conducting air operations against ISIL targets on the ground. I doubt we will see that acknowledged in the US media, but it is apparently common knowledge in Mideastern media outlets. I doubt the American-Iranian alliance vs. ISIL will grow into anything more than a limited and temporary alliance against the ISIL cancer spreading like a malignancy throughout the Mideast. Indeed, the Arab writer of the third link calls ISIL the “devil’s rejects.” I believe his choice of words is most apt.
Ezekiel 38:2-6 confirms that Iran (“Persia”) will be allied to Russia, China and the rest of the Gog-Magog alliance vs. the USA, NATO and their allies at the very end of this age, so the Bible also agrees that the current convergence of Iranian and American interests will be temporary.
- http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/12/29/iran-commander-killed-fighting-iraq
- http://www.skynews.com.au/news/world/mideast/2014/12/29/iran-commander-killed-fighting-is-in-iraq.html
- http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2014/12/27/The-Arabs-circa-2014-Despair-and-disintegration-.html
