Middle Eastern mysteries
The Islamic State has aroused none of the fury directed against Israel, East or West.
The lightning successes of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq, have given rise to two mysteries difficult to explain:
First, given the fact that IS is militantly anti-Sh’ia and has made no secret of its hatred for the Shiites and its intention to wipe them out wherever it rules, it is strange that the reaction of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been so lackadaisical. The commander of the Quds Force, international wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the famous (or infamous) General Suleimani, went to Baghdad immediately after IS swept across northern and western Iraq in June, giving rise to the expectation that the Revolutionary Guard would intervene in massive fashion to break the IS momentum and drive it back. But nothing much has happened since, except for the dispatch of some military advisors. This is particularly curious because having IS sprawled across a vast territory in Iraq and Syria destroys the Iranian grand strategy of a Sh’ia arc across the Middle and Near East from Iran to Lebanon, incorporating Iraq and Syria.