Given the general chaos in the Middle East today—and its own bloody recent history—Lebanon seems almost an oasis of peace. But looks can be deceiving, writes Danielle Pletka; Lebanon should instead be seen as a warning. In the years following the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1989, its various militias disarmed or were integrated successfully into the Lebanese Armed Forces—all except the Iranian proxy Hizballah, which has since come to dominate both politically and militarily. Iran has similar designs for Iraq:
The Baghdad government has accommodated the so-called Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces [or PMFs, as the Shiite militias fighting Islamic State are called]; Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, one of Shiite Islam’s greatest eminences, has blessed their fight. The Iraqi legislature has approved the PMF’s nominal incorporation into the Iraqi army, even as Iraqi government officials acknowledge that 30 percent of the PMF are under Iranian government control. Once the fight with Islamic State ends, what will happen to these militias?
There’s already a hint of how the future of the PMF will play out. Like Hizballah, some units are fighting at Iran’s behest in Syria on behalf of Assad. Iraqi leaders, as their Lebanese counterparts once did, are fretting about the future of Iran’s proxies. The Iraqis rightly see the militias as instrumental in the counter-IS battle, and also rightly judge them a danger when that fight is done. . . .
That is why more must be done soon to ensure that the Iraqi leadership understands, as the Lebanese government does not, that the continued existence of Iranian proxy forces within and working alongside its military is incompatible with long-term assistance from the United States.
Congress can predicate assistance and weapons transfers on clear assurances that Iran and its proxies are not indirect beneficiaries. If it does not, Iraq, like Lebanon before it and others to come, will become yet another pawn in Iran’s Middle East game.
Read more on American Enterprise Institute: http://www.aei.org/publication/iran-won-in-lebanon-what-about-iraq/