How It Looks

Michael J. Totten has often written good sense about the Middle East mess. Here he writes for City Journal about the conflict between Shia and Sunni and how the sought-by-Obama-and-Kerry nuclear non-proliferation deal with Iran will be viewed by the Sunni.

Any deal with Iran, good or bad, is likely to benefit ISIS.

Most Sunni Arabs tremble at the rise of Iranian power and are reluctant to stand against the maniacs on their own side, especially when the U.S. and Europe appear to side with the Persians and Shia against them. That’s not how it is, but that’s how it looks.

The odds that ISIS will be undermined internally by Syrian and Iraqi Sunnis while they’re facing what appears to be a Western-backed enemy alliance in Damascus, Tehran, and Baghdad are virtually zilch.

Do you suppose Obama's undisclosed plan is to have the Iranians subdue the fractious Arabs in much the same way the Ottoman Turks once did? It is remotely possible Iran would find the Arabs a troublesome conquest, and be kept busy (and hence out of trouble) corralling them. Israel might not survive in an Iran-dominated region. If those are his hopes, they are truly Machiavellian.