Middle East expert Dr. Walid Phares says that he cannot see any benefit to the United States working with Iran in its fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).
"There's only cons," Phares told J.D. Hayworth and Miranda Khan on "America's Forum" on
Newsmax TV Monday.
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"The only pro that the Iranians are telling us about is that they will be marching with us against ISIS in Iraq," he explained. "They will be supporting the Assad regime marching against ISIS in Syria."
"If this was Russia or China, I would understand that. We have a lot of problems with them, but they are not attacking us," he said.
However, that is not the case with Iran, the Middle East expert added.
"They are waging a warfare against us, they're developing the nuclear bomb, they are threatening Israel, they're oppressing many people," Phares explained. "It's not New Zealand."
"If you want to have Iran with us in the coalition, the minimum would be for the Iranian regime to change a lot of stuff — a lot of positioning, to disarm many things, and to ensure that when they're going to come with us in this alliance, they're not going to establish other Islamic republics instead of the Islamic states," he said.
That, he explained further, is precisely one of the major problems of working with Iran in this fight.
"The Iranians do not want to destroy ISIS to be replaced by some liberal democracy," he contends. "They want to destroy ISIS to be replaced by them and their allies and Hezbollah and Assad and their friends in Iran."
Phares says that the best way Iran can help the United States is "to stay behind its own borders, take care of its own borders, and make sure, specifically, not to move in Sunni areas."
"If it moves in Sunni areas, our entire strategy of having Arab moderate Sunnis mobilizing against ISIS will go down," he added.
When
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the United Nations General Assembly Monday, he is expected to urge the United States and other allied nations to continue to pressure Iran to scale back its nuclear program, because a nuclear Iran would pose a greater threat than ISIS.
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