Henry Kissinger warns Trump: defeating ISIS could lead to Iranian empire

The former diplomat has suggested that once ISIS is defeated, if Iran occupies the free territory, the result could lead to the emergence of a new empire.

The 94-year-old, who was the Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, also spoke about the complications of taking sides in Middle Eastern conflicts.

“In these circumstances, the traditional adage that the enemy of your enemy can be regarded as your friend no longer applies. In the contemporary Middle East, the enemy of your enemy may also be your enemy. The Middle East affects the world by the volatility of its ideologies as much as by its specific actions,” he wrote in an article for CapX.

“The outside world’s war with ISIS can serve as an illustration. Most non-ISIS powers — including Shia Iran and the leading Sunni states — agree on the need to destroy it. But which entity is supposed to inherit its territory? A coalition of Sunnis? Or a sphere of influence dominated by Iran?

“The answer is elusive because Russia and the Nato countries support opposing factions. If the ISIS territory is occupied by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards or Shia forces trained and directed by it, the result could be a territorial belt reaching from Tehran to Beirut, which could mark the emergence of an Iranian radical empire,” Kissinger added.

It is not the first time Kissinger has made such remarks. Last year, the former Harvard professor said the biggest challenge the Middle East faced was the “potential domination” by Iran, the Algemeiner reported.

The statement by Kissinger came as in Iraq, Baghdad's forces have liberated the northern city of Mosul from the terror group and are close to ousting ISIS from all of its population centers. In Syria, Syrian and Kurdish forces have recaptured almost half of the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, which became the de facto ISIS capital after the militant group rose to prominence in mid-2014.

The United States launched a campaign of airstrikes against ISIS in August 2014 after the terrorist group overran the key Iraqi city of Mosul and parts of the country's north and west.

The US-led coalition of 68 nations has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be the positions of ISIS terrorists inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

That is while Iran and Syria are accusing the US of supporting ISIS. In a recent move to support the terrorist group, the US military forces attacked a military base captured by Hashd al-Shaabi forces near al-Tanf, an area on Iraq-Syria border.

According to reports, 47 forces were killed in the US strike by artillery fire and smart bombs on Monday.

The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of fulfilling its declared aim of destroying the ISIS Takfiri terrorist group.


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