In response to yesterday’s Bloomberg View report that Iran’s forces and the United States share bases in Iraq, Senator Tom Cotton has issued a strong statement against the administration’s partnership with the Islamic Republic.
“When I was a soldier fighting in Iraq,” Cotton writes,
This report is a stark and nearly absurd demonstration of the Obama administration’s tacit accommodation of Iran’s strategic aim of extending its influence in Iraq. It echoes the president’s tacit accommodation of Iran’s wish to maintain Bashar al-Assad in Syria and his explicit accommodation of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”
The Bloomberg story, reported by Eli Lake and Josh Rogin, explains that the Obama administration “has sought and received formal assurances from the government of Iraq that the Shiite militias on the base would not interfere with American military personnel.” However, as one senior administration official told them, “There’s no real command and control from the central government….Even if these guys don’t attack us … Iran is ushering in a new Hezbollah era in Iraq, and we will have aided and abetted it.”
Unfortunately, that seems to be the point—given that the administration is coordinating with the Iranian security structure throughout the Middle East.
