The Defeat of ISIS Under Khamenei's Leadership; Another Page of Historical Distortion

In the second half of November 2017, the Islamic Republic added another page to its entirely false history that is written and presented by its propaganda apparatus and distorting officials. This page claims that ISIS was defeated by the Islamic Republic under Khamenei's leadership. At the beginning of this page, there is Qassem Soleimani's message to Khamenei, followed by Khamenei's response to him and various messages from military officials of the Islamic Republic to Soleimani and Khamenei, along with the medals they hang around their friends' necks. This distortion has two separate parts: 1. That ISIS was created by the United States: "All these crimes [of ISIS] were designed and executed by leaders and organizations linked to the United States, according to the confession of the highest official of the United States who currently holds the presidency of this country." (Soleimani's message to Khamenei, Tasnim, November 30, 2017) Khamenei, Zarif, and other officials of the Islamic Republic have repeated this incorrect and blatant distortion dozens of times: "Previous and current American governments and their affiliated regimes in this region created this group and supported it in every way." (Khamenei in response to Soleimani, November 30, 2017) 2. That ISIS was defeated by the Islamic Republic. Soleimani directly attributes this to Khamenei's leadership in his letter to him: "What caused the defeat of this black and dangerous conspiracy after God's grace and the special favor of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his noble family was your wise leadership and the wise guidance of the esteemed Ayatollah Sistani, which mobilized all resources to confront this poisonous storm." In thanking other institutions of the Islamic Republic, he speaks as if the task of defeating ISIS was entrusted to him and he has accomplished this task. Khamenei also confirms this blatant distortion: "I thank the great God with all my being for granting blessings to your self-sacrificing struggles and the vast multitude of your colleagues at various levels, and for uprooting the wicked tree that was planted by the tyrants of the world, by your righteous servants, in Syria and Iraq." In the two parts, I will demonstrate the futility and invalidity of these two claims: ISIS is a product of the power vacuum and Islamism. ISIS is a product of the power vacuum caused by the severe repression of the Syrian people by Bashar al-Assad and simultaneously the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq in 2011 by the Obama administration. Those who claim that ISIS is a product of the United States first overlook the first part, which is the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Syrians by Bashar al-Assad and the reaction of the Syrian people to it and the expulsion of Assad's forces from various parts of the country (the Syrian side of the story), and on the Iraqi side, they equate the withdrawal of American forces with the creation of ISIS. The fact that Trump distorted this issue in his election campaigns does not add any truth to this story. The withdrawal of American forces was the wish of the Iraqi government and the resolution of its parliament, not merely the wish of the American government. Of course, the Obama administration could have insisted on the remaining of at least ten thousand American forces in Iraq based on the country's past experiences, but it did not. What connection does the flight of tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers from Mosul during ISIS's attack on this city have with the wish of the American government? What relation does the readiness of eastern Syria for establishing an Islamic caliphate and selling oil through Turkey have with the American government? Here, a confusion is made between the cause and "one of the possible contributing factors" (especially by clerics who read these things in logic). If the intention is that the cause of ISIS's creation is the withdrawal of American forces - which, of course, the officials of the Islamic Republic do not hold this view and they themselves were among those insisting on the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq - the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq can be one of the possible contributing factors leading to the fall of parts of Iraq to ISIS, which is vastly different from the creation of ISIS. Unfortunately, not a single person in Iran can remind Khamenei and his military commanders and propaganda apparatus of this flawed logic. ISIS is a product of unprecedented repression of the Syrian people (preparing a portion of Syrian youth to join this group), the expulsion of the Syrian army from most areas of the country (power vacuum), and Islamism (the Islamic Republic itself is another product of Islamism); ISIS was primarily driven out of its controlled areas by the Iraqi army and the anti-ISIS coalition (the United States, European countries, and some regional countries like Jordan). Essentially, ISIS did not initially form in Iraq for the withdrawal of American forces to be considered its cause. ISIS formed in Syria and then expanded its power to Iraq. If the Islamic Republic is responsible for the addiction of 4.4 million people in Iran who consume drugs voluntarily due to its failure to prevent the distribution of narcotics (and does not consider any responsibility for individuals), one can accept with the same flawed logic that ISIS (if it had formed in Iraq) is a product of the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Besides this issue, what reality do the officials of the Islamic Republic not attribute to the United States that this one is an exception or has any truth? The officials of the Islamic Republic consider the United States responsible for the increase in divorce, crime and delinquency, drug distribution, scientific backwardness and underdevelopment of the country, poverty of two-thirds of the people, unemployment, and general misery in Iran, even though they have ruled over a wealthy country for four decades and claim independence and independent decision-making. Not only the United States but even the Pahlavi regime is introduced as responsible for all the problems of the country. The baseless claim of defeating ISIS To demonstrate this big lie, I will mention some realities, some of which have even been reflected in the official propaganda apparatus of the Islamic Republic: In Iraq, there were only about 5,000 American advisors and more than a thousand military advisors from Canada, Australia, and Europe helping the Iraqi army to destroy ISIS. Dozens of American soldiers have been killed in the fight against ISIS. American coalition aircraft conducted about 13,000 airstrikes in Iraq and 10,000 airstrikes in Syria against ISIS until July 2017, dropping about 85,000 bombs and missiles on the facilities and members of this group. By September 2016, about 45,000 ISIS members had been killed by the United States and its allies. By February 2017, this number reached about 60,000. If this does not mean that American officials, both in the Obama and Trump administrations, were seeking the destruction of ISIS, what could convey this meaning? This policy is evident in both their words and actions. Without reconnaissance operations, the coalition forces' war against ISIS could not have been successful. Without logistical, armament, advisory, and reconnaissance assistance from the coalition forces, including the provision of anti-tank weapons and military training for the Peshmerga, the Kurdish forces' war against ISIS, which played a key role in stopping and then pushing back ISIS from areas in Iraq and Syria, would not have been possible. American officials, in collaboration with social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, have been seeking to eliminate channels, messages, and hashtags of ISIS from cyberspace. ISIS has so far carried out dozens of terrorist operations in Europe and North America, killing and injuring thousands. From this perspective, eliminating this group has been vital for Western countries. Since joining the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria until the end of 2016, Britain has conducted more than 1,200 airstrikes. The number of Britain's strikes has been higher than that of other coalition countries against ISIS after the United States. The Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the United States dropped 12,192 bombs in Syria and 12,095 bombs in Iraq in 2016. For this reason, from 2011 to 2017, Britain was the target of various terrorist attacks by ISIS or inspired by ISIS, including the latest one in 2017, a bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester that resulted in the deaths of 22 and injuries to 59 others, and another vehicle attack on pedestrians on Westminster Bridge that killed 5 people. Some of the victims of ISIS after its establishment in Syria and Iraq have been British citizens. No independent news or research source has claimed that ISIS was created by Britain. Moreover, England is only one part of the four parts of the United Kingdom alongside Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Mosul was captured by the Iraqi army in cooperation with the anti-ISIS coalition (led by the United States). The condition for the cooperation of American forces with the Iraqi army in the capture of Mosul was that Hashd al-Shaabi and Quds Force forces were not present in the region. The capital of ISIS, Raqqa, was also captured by Kurdish forces allied with the United States. Essentially, Bashar al-Assad's forces and Hezbollah and the Quds Force were engaged with other Syrian opponents in the west of the country and never had ISIS as their primary target. Bashar al-Assad and his allies initially welcomed the presence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq and did not engage with them because their actions distracted from the crimes of Assad and his allies in Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs, and other areas. The claim that ISIS was created by Western governments is a baseless conspiracy theory because there is no evidence to support this claim. Western governments, civil institutions, and Western media, many of which are controlled by leftists critical of any military intervention of their countries in other countries, have never confirmed such a thing. The reasons that conspiracy theorists cite as evidence of Western governments' support for ISIS are all baseless. The weapons, ammunition, and Western machinery in the hands of ISIS are mainly spoils obtained by this group, not equipment that Western governments sold or gifted to them; the dropping of food and other aid in areas under ISIS influence was due to human error and aimed at helping victims of war; and the failure to attack some ISIS centers by the Obama administration was accompanied by environmental justifications, not support for them. The Trump administration changed this policy. The role of the Islamic Republic has also been to keep the Assad regime alive, which has occasionally led to clashes with ISIS. ISIS had not even approached tens of kilometers from the Iranian border for the Islamic Republic's war with ISIS to be justified as a matter of national security. The evidence for this point is that most of the casualties of the Quds Force and ISIS occurred in clashes among Assad's opponents other than ISIS and in areas outside of ISIS-controlled regions, not ISIS. Very few of the casualties of the Quds Force and Hezbollah have been attributed to ISIS by the official propaganda apparatus of the Islamic Republic. Thus, for the same baseless reasons that ISIS is a product of the West, one can consider ISIS a product of the Islamic Republic, because ISIS attacked the parliament and Khomeini's shrine in Tehran (like its attacks in Britain, France, and Spain), because ISIS was targeted by Iranian missiles (like the missile and bomb attacks of coalition forces), and because ISIS was at one point ignored by Assad and his allies, namely Hezbollah and the Quds Force (like the Obama administration). In summary, first, ISIS is a product of unprecedented repression of the Syrian people (preparing a portion of Syrian youth to join this group), the expulsion of the Syrian army from most areas of the country (power vacuum), and Islamism (the Islamic Republic itself is another product of Islamism); ISIS was primarily driven out of its controlled areas by the Iraqi army and the anti-ISIS coalition (the United States, European countries, and some regional countries like Jordan).