Don't go back to Iraq, Mr. President

The war against ISIS is a war that will be fought in alliance with Iran in support of Iranian client states: the Assad regime in Damascus and the sectarian Shiite government in Baghdad. Obama forced Iran’s special friend Nouri al-Maliki to resign as Iraqi prime minister. That prettied up the Baghdad government’s image, but the real power in Iraq remains the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). If U.S. airpower weakens ISIS, it’s the IRGC that will command the advancing Iraqi forces—and IRGC cadres who will stiffen the demoralized Iraqi army. In Syria, that same job will be done by Hezbollah…

The trouble with the policy of aid-Iran-but-don’t-admit-it is that the United States receives nothing in return—and specifically, no abatement of the Iranian nuclear program. The Obama administration may hope that by acting as Iran’s air force today, the United States may somehow gain Iranian goodwill tomorrow. Instead, the bizarre real-world effect of the administration’s deny-the-obvious messaging is to empower the Iranians to act as if they were doing the United States a favor by allowing the United States to whomp their enemies for them.