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Sen. John McCain has called for the heads of President Obama’s entire national-security staff for the debacle in Iraq. Papers and websites are filled withopinion pieces running some variation of the title “Who lost Iraq?”

Other folks can debate and assign blame for “who lost Iraq.” But I’ll let you in on a little secret about who the biggest loser is, now that Iraq seems to be going up in flames (besides the long-suffering Iraqi people): the Islamic Republic of Iran.

If events continue to go south in a big way, the IRGC might be forced to choose between competing security priorities. It’s also still too early to tell, but every aid shipment to Baghdad might mean one fewer for Damascus.

Yes, because Iran’s security strategy for the past decade has been to (A) keep America off balance inside Iraq, while (B) making sure Baghdad doesn’t ever pose a threat like it did during the Iran-Iraq War. While the U.S. maintained its presence in Iraq and tried to keep the locals from cutting each others’ throats, the Iranians quietlynot-so-quietly developed their massive networks within the country, raised proxies, and generally subverted our efforts.

Iran’s covert/overt effort to bleed the U.S. in Iraq was a massive, complex endeavor. During the American occupation, Iran bankrolled multiple lethal Shia proxy groups like Jaysh al-Mahdi, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, and Khataib Hezbollah that in turn killed American troops and rocketed the U.S. Embassy, sometimes multiple times a day. Tehran flooded the country with precision-engineered bombs, called Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs), able to penetrate American tanks, causing thousands of American and Iraqi casualties in the process. Furthermore, Tehran has bribed Iraqi generals and politicians to undermine American efforts, had its elite Quds Force operate within Iraq for years; and even may have a hand in a particularly gruesome murder of five U.S. servicemen in 2007.

Keeping its American adversary pinned down in the quicksand of Iraq’s ethno-sectarian conflict suited Tehran’s interests quite nicely, as long as the war didn’t spill across its 900-plus-mile border. But the Stars and Stripes don’t fly over military bases in Iraq and American taxpayers aren’t spending billions of dollars every month anymore—and so now Iran must deal with the continuing fallout alone.

When Iraq pulled back from a total civil war in 2008-2011, Tehran should have told its longtime friend, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that, even though he really wanted to crack down on those suspicious Sunni tribes in Anbar province once the Americans left, he should instead try to integrate them into Iraq’s government and security forces. With all that oil money gushing into Baghdad’s coffers and a few years of relative stability behind it, Maliki could have even developed Anbar’s infrastructure, too, in order to keep those tribes fat, happy—and co-opted. This was Saddam’s general strategy, and how he kept power for so long.

Tehran should have done this not because they particularly liked Sunni Iraqis, but rather because it’s in Iran’s critical national-security interest to keep their neighbor stable—and prosperous. After all, Iraq has quickly become one of Iran’s top trading partners, doing $12 billion in two-way trade in 2013. Tehran and Baghdad was also slated to open a 167-mile pipeline that would supply Iraq with three to four million cubic meters of natural gas per day, earning Iran some $3.7 billion annually.

On the other hand, upsetting and alienating a large percentage of the population such as the Sunnis is a recipe for disaster. As citizens of a multiethnic country that is only about 60 percent ethnic Persian, every Iranian instinctively understands this.

But either Iran didn’t provide this advice, or Maliki didn’t take it. Instead, he decided to take the rod against Sunni groups, like the Anbar Awakening councils that routed al Qaeda in Iraq in 2007. And issue an arrest warrant for the Iraqi vice president, Sunni Tariq al-Hashimi, on terrorism charges in 2011. And ignore the endemic corruption in the country.

And so long-simmering tensions reemerged. This gave breathing room to al Qaeda in Iraq/Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS), which lost its founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in 2006 to an American air strike, and then his successors Abu Umar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri in 2010. Within the larger political backdrop, ISIS survived and grew into the menace that it is today.

Now, Iran is doing the best it can to salvage what it can. The Quds Force is on the ground battling ISIS, and presumably Tehran is rushing all manner of aid to a beleaguered Iraqi government. Longtime Quds Force chief Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani is reportedly in Baghdad, which indicates the severity of the crisis. Back at home, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said Iran will “fight and combat” terrorism after his country’s Supreme National Security Council on June 12th convened an emergency session to discuss Iraq’s predicament.

Still, Iran is now obliged to fight a two-front war against Sunni groups—one in Syria and now another in Iraq. Given that punishing international sanctions are crushing its economy over its nuclear-weapons program, it’s not like Tehran has infinite funds to spare for foreign adventures.

Of course, Iran is willing to take on a lot of hardship to secure what it considers its national-security interests (say, its nuclear-weapons program), but opening up a new effort against Sunnis—with boots on the ground in Iraq—must be causing a lot of heartburn in Tehran.

If events continue to go south in a big way, the IRGC might be forced to choose between competing, compelling security priorities. It’s also still too early to tell, but every aid shipment to Baghdad might mean one fewer for Damascus.

What about the day after tomorrow? Even if ISIS is rolled back significantly in the next few weeks, the systemic problems that put Iraq into this current mess will still remain. The Iraqi army still won’t have effective leadership. The parliament will still be unable to govern—despite the severity of the crisis, it couldn’t even pass a declaration of a state of emergency after Mosul fell. The Sunnis will remain aggrieved. Corruption will still take its toll. And ISIS will now find new Iranian targets to hit.

One silver lining to ISIS’s menace to Iraqi society is that it might actually bring Iran and the U.S. closer together, at least on this battlefield. Who knows, Americans commanders might soon find themselves working with the exact same people who were killing and maiming American troops only a few years ago.

For instance, if elite Iranian troops battle ISIS on the ground, and the U.S. decided to provide air power to smite ISIS from the skies, it would make for a much more effective counteroffensive if the two forces coordinated their efforts. Few would have predicted a scenario where Iranian troops provided actionable intelligence to American commanders to destroy murderous jihadist militants, and vice versa. But war sometimes makes for strange bedfellows.

Nevertheless, Iran can only go so far to pacify Iraq with its own forces. The IRGC and its Shia proxies are reviled in Sunni-majority areas, and an effort to hold territory by these groups would eventually cause a major backlash among the population. So Iran would have to eventually withdraw, leaving a power vacuum, again, in those areas.

More broadly, many of the socio-economic and sectarian drivers that brought Iraq to this horrific juncture would remain in place after the shooting stopped. A semi-failed state containing thousands of virulently anti-Shia veteran fighters on its western border will remain a long-term national-security nightmare for Tehran.

But America shouldn’t gloat over Iran’s misfortunes too deeply. After all, just because Iran is the biggest loser in this current Iraqi crisis doesn’t mean America is winning this particular battle either.

(The Daily Beast)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's military arrested around 80 Palestinians in the West Bank, including members of the militant group Hamas, early Sunday as part of efforts to locate three teenagers, including an American, believed abducted in the territory while hitchhiking home.

Palestinians have kidnapped Israelis before but this would be the first time three civilians have been taken at the same time.

"Palestinian terrorists will not feel safe, will not be able to hide and will feel the heavy arm of the Israeli military capabilities," spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds the Western-backed Palestinian Authority responsible for the Thursday night disappearance of the teens. The Palestinians' self-rule government, which administers 38 percent of the West Bank, has rejected blame, saying the teens went missing in territory under full Israeli control.

Israeli-Palestinian tensions were already strained, in part because of the recent formation of a Palestinian unity government that has the backing of the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Hamas, branded a terror group by the West for its long history of attacks on Israeli civilians, has been involved in the kidnapping of Israelis in the past. The group has routinely claimed responsibility for such attacks, but has not claimed it captured the teens.

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Israeli soldiers patrol during a military operation to search for three missing teenagers near the W …

A Hamas website said more than 60 of those arrested were members of the group, including senior figures. Among those detained were two former Cabinet ministers and seven Hamas legislators. The most prominent name among those detained was Hassan Yousef, a legislator who has spent years in Israeli lockups and is seen as the head of Hamas in the West Bank.

The Israeli military also detained supporters of the Islamic Jihad, a smaller Palestinian militant group.

In recent months, there have been growing signs of the emergence in the West Bank of small groups of militants who identify with al-Qaida. One of several claims of responsibility for the kidnapping came from a group that said it was linked to an al-Qaida splinter group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant which controls parts of Syria and overran parts of northern Iraq this month.

A Palestinian group representing prisoners said about 100 were arrested in the raid including some who have been jailed in the past.

The military also said its aircraft struck several targets in Gaza overnight in retaliation for Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said a girl was lightly hurt.

Israel arrests 80 Palestinians in search for teens

Members of the militant group Hamas are among those held as authorities try to find three missing teenagers.
American among missing

London (AFP) - Tony Blair hit out on Sunday at critics who linked the 2003 invasion of Iraq with the current violence in the country, blaming instead the West's failure to act in Syria.

The former prime minister, who led Britain into the US-led war to remove Saddam Hussein and is now a diplomatic envoy in the Middle East, also criticised the sectarianism of the government in Baghdad.

In a long article published on his website, Blair said arguments that there would be no crisis in the region if the Iraqi dictator had remained in power were "bizarre".

He condemned the sectarianism of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, who he said had "snuffed out what was a genuine opportunity to build a cohesive Iraq".

But he said the Syrian conflict had provided the Islamic militants seizing swathes of territory in northern Iraq with battle experience and a base from which to launch their attacks across the border.

Blair said action in Syria needed not be another invasion, but said moderate rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad should be "given the support they need".

Meanwhile extremist groups, whether in Syria or Iraq, "should be targeted, in coordination and with the agreement of the Arab countries", he said, saying the United States should be considering military strikes in Iraq.

"By all means argue about the wisdom of earlier decisions. But it is the decisions now that will matter," he wrote.

"The choices are all pretty ugly, it is true. But for three years we have watched Syria descend into the abyss and as it is going down, it is slowly but surely wrapping its cords around us pulling us down with it.

"We have to put aside the differences of the past and act now to save the future. Where the extremists are fighting, they have to be countered hard, with force."

Blair was prime minister between 1997 and 2007 and is now representative for the Middle East Quartet, comprised of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.

Related video

An Iraq War supporter, Britain's former prime minister blames two other factors for the violence in Iraq.
Current choices 'all pretty ugly'

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani intelligence officials say that airstrikes overnight in the northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan have killed as many as 100 militants.

Two intelligence officials said Sunday that the airstrikes by the Pakistani military targeted eight militant hideouts in the North Waziristan tribal area.

The officials did not want to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The information could not be independently verified.

The tribal areas are a remote and dangerous area that is difficult for journalists to access.

The airstrikes come a week after militants attacked the airport in Karachi in a five-hour siege that ended with 36 people including the 10 attackers killed.

Related video

100 militants killed in Pakistan airstrikes

Pakistani military jets target eight hideouts of extremists, two intelligence officials say.
Second attack on the region

By Ahmed Rasheed and Raheem Salman

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An offensive by insurgents that threatens to dismember Iraq seemed to slow on Saturday after days of lightning advances as government forces regained some territory in counter-attacks, easing pressure on the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

As Iraqi officials spoke of wresting back the initiative against Sunni militants, neighboring Shi'ite Iran held out the prospect of working with its longtime U.S. arch-enemy to help restore security in Iraq.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday he was reviewing military options, short of sending troops, to combat the insurgency. The United States ordered an aircraft carrier moved into the Gulf on Saturday, readying it in case Washington decides to pursue a military option after insurgents overran areas in the north and advanced on Baghdad. (Full Story)

Ships like the USS George H.W. Bush, which are equipped with sophisticated anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles, are often used to launch airstrikes, conduct surveillance flights, do search, rescue, humanitarian and evacuation missions, and conduct seaborne security operations, a U.S. defense official said.

Thousands of Iraqis responded to a call by the country's most influential Shi'ite cleric to take up arms and defend the country against the insurgency, led by the Sunni militant Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.

In a visit to the city of Samarra, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to rout the insurgents, whose onslaught has put the future of Iraq as a unitary state in question and raised the specter of sectarian conflict.

The militant gains have alarmed Maliki's Shi'ite supporters in both Iran and the United States, which helped bring him to power after invading the country and toppling former Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

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Members of Iraqi security forces and tribal fighters take part in an intensive security deployment o …

Oil prices have jumped over fears of ISIL disrupting exports from OPEC member Iraq.

But having encountered little resistance in majority Sunni areas, the militants have now come up against the army, which clawed back some towns and territory around Samarra on Saturday with the help of Shi'ite militia.

"We have regained the initiative and will not stop at liberating Mosul from ISIL terrorists, but all other parts," said Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman for the Iraqi military's commander-in-chief, pointing out areas the army had retaken on a map with a laser pen.

In the northeastern province of Diyala, at least seven members of the Kurdish security forces were killed in an airstrike, police said.

The secretary general of the Kurdish security forces said, however, that only two people had died near the town of Jalawla in what he described as shelling, and that it was not yet clear whether Iraqi forces or militants were responsible.

The incident and divergent accounts show the potential for security in Iraq to deteriorate further, given the deployment of several heavily armed factions and shifting areas of control.

Militants in control of Tikrit, 45 km (27 miles) north of Samarra, planted landmines and roadside bombs at the city's entrances, apparently anticipating a counter-attack by government forces. Residents said the militants deployed across the city and moved anti-aircraft guns and heavy artillery into position. Families began to flee north in the direction of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city that Kurdish forces occupied on Thursday after the Iraqi army fled.

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Volunteers who have joined the Iraqi army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants, who ha …

IRAQI ARMY COUNTER-ATTACKS

Security sources said Iraqi troops attacked an ISIL formation in the town of al-Mutasim, 22 km (14 miles) southeast of Samarra, driving militants into the surrounding desert on Saturday.

The army also reasserted control over the small town of Ishaqi, southeast of Samarra, to secure a road that links the city to Baghdad and the cities of Tikrit and Mosul farther north.

Troops backed by the Shi'ite Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia helped retake the town of Muqdadiya northeast of Baghdad, and ISIL was dislodged from Dhuluiya after three hours of fighting with tribesmen, local police and residents, a tribal leader said.

In Udhaim, 90 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Asaib and police fought militants who earlier occupied the local municipal building, an official there told Reuters, and they directed mortar fire at the government protection force of the Baiji oil refinery, Iraq's largest.

Masked jihadists under the black flag of ISIL aim to revive a medieval caliphate that would span a fragmenting Iraq and Syria, redrawing borders set by European colonial powers a century ago and menacing neighbors like Iran and Turkey.

Obama cautioned on Friday that any U.S. intervention must be accompanied by an Iraqi government effort to bridge divisions between Shi'ite and Sunni communities.

Eye Opener: Obama insists Iraq must defend itselfPlay Video

The White House said on Saturday that Obama had called national security adviser Susan Rice on Friday night and on Saturday morning to receive updates on the situation in Iraq.

"The president directed her to continue to keep him appraised of the latest developments, as his national security team continues to meet through the weekend to review potential options," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Saturday and expressed support for Iraq in its fight against insurgents, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Kerry pledged $12 million and stressed that Iraq should assure its neighbors that the war is not sectarian, but against the insurgents, the statement said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, asked at a televised news conference whether Tehran could work with the United States to tackle ISIL, said: "We can think about it if we see America starts confronting the terrorist groups in Iraq or elsewhere.

"We all should practically and verbally confront terrorist groups," added Rouhani, a relative moderate who has presided over a thaw in Iran's long antagonistic relations with the West.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters earlier this week that Tehran, which has strong leverage in Shi'ite-majority Iraq, may be ready to cooperate with Washington against ISIL rebels.

The official said the idea of cooperating with the Americans was being mooted within the Tehran leadership. For now, according to Iranian media, Iran will send advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to boost Baghdad.

Iraq's Maliki warns Sunni insurgents to expect …Play Video

U.S. officials said on Friday there had been no contact with Iran over the crisis in Iraq. Asked about Rouhani's comments on Saturday, a White House spokesman said he would have no further comment.

Any initiative would follow a clear pattern of Iranian overtures since the 2001 al Qaeda attacks on U.S. targets, which led to quiet U.S.-Iranian collaboration in the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and formation of a successor government.

The United States and Iran, adversaries since Iran's 1979 revolution toppled the U.S.-backed Shah, have long accused each other of meddling in the Gulf and beyond, and have not cooperated on regional security issues for more than a decade.

MALIKI: BEGINNING OF END FOR MILITANTS

Militants attacked the convoy of the custodian of the holy shrine in Samarra, while he was en route to Baghdad. Sheikh Haider al-Yaqoobi was not harmed, but 10 of his guards were killed, a source in Samarra hospital said.

Maliki traveled on Friday to Samarra, one of the cities targeted - although not seized - by ISIL fighters who now prevail in a string of Sunni cities and towns running south from Mosul.

"Samarra will not be the last line of defense, but a gathering point and launchpad," he told military officers after Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric urged people to take up arms and defend the country against the insurgents.

"Within the coming hours, all the volunteers will arrive to support the security forces in their war against the gangs of ISIL. This is the beginning of the end of them," Maliki, a Shi'ite Muslim, said in comments broadcast on Iraqi television.

Maliki said the Cabinet had granted him unlimited powers to confront insurgents. Last week, parliament failed to convene for a vote on declaring a state of emergency due to a boycott by most Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers.

In Basra, Iraq's main city in the mainly Shi'ite far south, hundreds volunteered to join the battle against ISIL, heeding a call to arms by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who commands unswerving loyalty from most Iraqi Shi'ites.

The volunteers, of all ages, were due to be given weapons and sent to a security center in Basra later on Saturday ready to be transferred farther north. "We the people of Basra obeyed our instructions to defend our country from south to north," said 63-year-old Kadhem Jassim.

Iran's Rouhani said he would review any request for help submitted by Maliki, although none had been received yet. "We are ready to help in the framework of international regulations and laws," he said.

(Additional reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil, Parisa Hafezi in Ankara and William Maclean in Dubai; Ahmed Rasheed and Isabel Coles in Baghdad; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Stephen Powell and Peter Cooney)