If you believe the Arabs living in Israel need a state but the Kurds should cede their state to the Islamic governments of Turkey, Baghdad, and Iran, you might be part of the Swamp.

We have spent several trillion dollars, lost thousands of dead, and ruined lives of our military fighting for our enemies in the Middle East or refereeing Islamic civil wars with no good outcome for America. Yet our government is now spitting on the one semi-stable, pro-Western, non-Islamic ally that could serve as a hedge against all our Middle Eastern enemies. We are dumping on the Kurds for taking a democratic vote for sovereignty — all for the purpose of allying with the Iranian-backed government in Baghdad and cozying up to Erdogan.

Iraq doesn’t exist any more and only existed for a few generations, drawn together randomly after WWI by immoral, arbitrary lines. Once we overthrew Saddam Hussein and handed Baghdad to Iran, there was no more Iraq. We’ve spent over a decade refereeing the Islamic civil war between Iranian-backed Shia militants and Sunni jihadists. Now, in order to “defeat ISIS,” we have essentially allied with Iran, handing them a Hezbollah terror corridor from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea.

Even worse, when Iran’s domination over Sunni areas reaches another boiling point and triggers the next round of the Sunni insurgency, our genius civilian and military leadership will feel obligated to “fix Iraq” again and bail out Iran, which is much more of a strategic threat than any Sunni group.

Enter the Kurds, who are the only successful fighting force against the Sunni insurgency but are also pro-American and can actually hold a growing area of northern Iraq in a stable way that serves every one of our interests. They voted overwhelmingly to become independent. And all the Kurds need are national recognition, a fraction of the military aid we give the corrupt Afghani and Baghdad governments, and the simple, helpful tools of statecraft we’d give to any allies. Rather than a bloody choice between helping Iran and helping Sunni jihadists, with the loss of tremendous blood and treasure, we can help a stable ally almost for free.

Yet not only are we not helping, we are rebuking the Kurds for taking up their sovereignty. The State Department said it was “deeply disappointed” by the democratic affirmation of sovereignty. Sen. Bob Corker, the king of the Iran deal, complained that the Kurdish vote was not in our national interests because it would weaken the Iranian-backed government. War is peace and peace is war!

This has emboldened the Baghdad government (aka Iran) to cut off all flights to Erbil airport, the Kurdish capital. Erdogan has threatened to attack the Kurds. Isn’t it amazing that while we pressured the Arab nations to back off Qatar, we are sitting idly by while they threaten the Kurds?

The Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) declared victory earlier this week when the population voted 93 percent in favor of Kurdish independence. The Kurds are also on the cusp of winning back even more territory than they originally lost to Sunni jihadists. After we spent tens of billions training the “Iraqi army,” it fled the minute ISIS attacked. Now that the Kurds are winning back their original land, which had been stolen by Arab Baathists for the past half-century, we are siding with Baghdad to pressure them to pull back. Our government is literally siding with Iran and Shiite militias, some of which are designated as terrorist groups, in their dispute with the Kurds over Kirkuk. We are also allowing Baghdad to hold up foreign aid for them while we refuse to cut off aid to the Lebanese Army at a time when Hezbollah is more empowered than ever before.

The Kurds are the biggest buffer against Iranian hegemony. NSC director H.R. McMaster won’t say what the administration’s strategy is to stop Iranian and Hezbollah expansion in the region, which was accelerated by our own military intervention on their behalf. Now the Kurds have the ability to undermine the Iranians. Iranian Kurds are already celebrating the move toward independence and rattling the Islamic republic.

It’s amazing to ponder the breathtaking insanity of our government’s policies in the Middle East. We will invest trillions in tying a noose around our own necks, yet we won’t invest pennies and moral support to allies who will help our interests for free. Just consider how the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) just reported that we’ve flushed $70 billion down the tubes propping up the failed Afghani military in order to sustain their Sharia government, yet we won’t simply give the green light to those who have demonstrated they can secure their country and remain pro-West.

Finally, as we explained already this month, creating an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq would kill two birds with one stone by serving as that regional resettlement home Trump has promised for refugees rather than resettling them in America.

It’s tragically ironic that at a time when we are struggling to defend our own sovereignty, we would disrespect the sovereignty of the Kurds. Yet, much like the backward domestic policy priorities of our political class, when it comes to foreign policy, friend is enemy and enemy is friend. The first 10 names in any telephone book would do a better job identifying the right investments, alliances, and strategic interests abroad than the current political and military leaders.

The question nobody in government is willing to ask is: How much longer are we going to continue throwing good money and lives after 16 years of failure in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many opportunities will we ignore while fighting for foreign Islamic countries that no longer exist?

(For more from the author of “The Insane Strategy of Empowering Iran, Islamists Against Kurds” please click HERE)

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Amid Americans’ concerns that North Korea threatened to launch a missile at Guam, Iran is planning on building up a flotilla of warships in the Atlantic Ocean, while Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani has threatened to revitalize the country’s nuclear program if the U.S. continues “threats and sanctions.”

If Washington continues with “threats and sanctions” against Iran, Tehran could easily ramp up its nuclear activities Rouhani said in Iranian Parliament, AP reported.

In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced (nuclear) level than at the beginning of the negotiations.

“The U.S. has shown that it is neither a good partner nor a trustable negotiator,” Rouhani added. “Those who are trying to go back to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past hallucinations. They deprive themselves of the advantages of peace.”

Iranian lawmakers reportedly shouted “death to America” as they passed the bill to increase military spending.

The legislation also imposes sanctions on U.S. military officials who are in the region.

Meanwhile, after the announcement of a massive $500 million investment in war spending, Iran has planned to send flotilla of warships to the Atlantic Ocean in response to the U.S. proposed sanctions against the country.

“No military official in the world thought that we can go around Africa to the Atlantic Ocean through the Suez Canal but we did it as we had declared that we would go to the Atlantic and its Western waters,” Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said.

This comes amid previous weeks of several tense interplays where Iranian military ships have carried out a series of dangerous drills near U.S. ships.

Just last Monday U.S. military officials reported another “unsafe” encounter with an Iranian drone that was following a U.S. carrier in the Persian Gulf that allegedly came close enough to an American F-18 jet to risk the pilot’s life.

In early August, U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law new sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea passed by the U.S. Congress.

Iran has maintained the new U.S. sanctions amount to a “hostile” breach of the 2015 nuclear deal.

U.S. President Donald Trump has stated several times that the Iran deal was a “bad deal” and continues looking into ways to repeal the deal.

Meanwhile, Iran has just threatened Trump saying they will “abandon its nuclear agreement with world powers within hours” if the United States imposes any more new sanctions, Reuters reported.

“If America wants to go back to the experience (of imposing sanctions), Iran would certainly return in a short time — not a week or a month but within hours — to conditions more advanced than before the start of negotiations,” Rouhani told a session of parliament broadcast live on state television.

“The world has clearly seen that under Trump, America has ignored international agreements and, in addition to undermining the (nuclear deal), has broken its word on the Paris agreement and the Cuba accord…and that the United States is not a good partner or a reliable negotiator,” Rouhani added.

Another U.S. president and just more geopolitical wars mounting up. Nothing ever seems to change even though all presidents seem to campaign on ending wars. (For more from the author of “Iran Threatens to Send Warships to Atlantic and Ramp up Nuclear Activities If U.S. Continues Sanctions” please click HERE)

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won a second term in office on Friday, securing about 57 percent of the votes cast in Iran’s carefully vetted and stage-managed presidential election.

Rouhani, a pragmatic hardliner often mistakenly described as a “moderate” by western media, outpolled a field of rival candidates that included Ebrahim Raisi, an ultra-hardline protégé of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.

The election will change little in Iran. In Iran’s theocratic political system, elections advance the interests of mullahcracy, not democracy.

Iran’s clerical rulers claim legitimacy by purporting to be carrying out the will of God, not the will of the people.

Unlike in the U.S., Iran’s president is a political figurehead with very limited powers and responsibilities.

Iran’s Supreme leader is the ultimate arbiter of the important issues, particularly those the United States is most concerned about: Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile force, its export of terrorism, and its efforts to export its revolution to Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other places.

As the leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution, the Supreme Leader controls the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?the cutting edge of the regime?which suppresses political opposition, protects the regime at home and abroad, controls Iran’s ballistic missile force as well as covert nuclear efforts, and orchestrates Iran’s support for terrorist groups.

Iran’s theocratic dictatorship has constructed a façade of democracy to mask the fact that real power always has been wielded by unelected clerical leaders. It is the ayatollahs, after all, who approve which candidates are allowed to run for president.

This year, more than 1,600 male candidates announced plans to run for the presidency (women cannot run), but only six were approved by the Guardian Council, an Orwellian body that certifies that candidates reliably support the radical goals of Iran’s Islamic revolution.

The political process amounts to more of a selection than an election. The political campaign provides something of a barometer for measuring popular opinion, but it is still a small, self-perpetuating clerical elite that makes the critical decisions.

This year’s campaign focused primarily on economic issues. Many Iranians were disappointed when the lifting of economic sanctions as part of the 2015 nuclear deal did not trickle down to improve their lives—something Rouhani had promised.

This didn’t happen, in part was because Iran’s biggest trade deals were designed to benefit state-controlled industries and firms affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, who control a large chunk of the Iranian economy.

Moreover, low oil prices have depressed Iran’s oil export revenues, which are the backbone of its economy.

The regime has exacerbated the situation by funneling many of the economic dividends provided by sanctions relief into a military buildup and an increasingly costly military intervention in Syria to prop up the brutal Assad regime.

Rouhani has little control over those decisions, which are made by Ayatollah Khamenei.

In reality, Iran’s election on Friday was a charade. All it did was re-select Rouhani as president—a president in name only.

Under Iran’s revolutionary political system, Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the revolution, greatly outranks the leader of the Iranian state.

Khamenei, who has ruled Iran since 1989, reportedly has suffered from prostate cancer in recent years. The selection of his successor will have a greater impact on Iran’s future than the selection of any president. (For more from the author of “Iran Re-Elects Rouhani as President” please click HERE)

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