Iraq to US: Bomb ISIS Or We’ll Ask Iran

Envoy Warns Maliki Won't Wait Forever for US Intervention

Spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party Haider al-Abadi issued a warning today that the nation is running out of patience with the US on not intervening against ISIS yet.

Abadi went on to say that the US needs to launch immediate airstrikes against ISIS, and that if they don’t, Iraq would court Iran to launch the strikes for them instead.

Iran has been keen to aid the Iraqi government, but the nation’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian insists Iran won’t send ground troops to directly intervene, and will limit their involvement to arms shipments and the current advisory operations.

Which sounds remarkably familiar to what the US is doing itself, suggesting both nations are in a race toward back door involvement in the war, while both assuring the public they won’t be doing so.

Still, even as the US continues to escalate and break promises of staying out of Iraq, the Iraq Ambassador to the US seems to be taking the words more seriously than the actions, and is warning the nation “can’t wait” for US involvement, and could court regional rivals as an alternative.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.