GOP lawmaker: US strategy on Iran is 'totally incoherent' : By Kristina Wong

[Fay Dickson-- AKA doofs]

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The U.S. policy toward Iran is inconsistent and incoherent, a Republican House lawmaker said Wednesday.  

"A big concern that I have is the incoherence of strategy in the region, especially vis-a-vis Iran — the elephant in the room," said Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) at a Armed Services Committee hearing. 

She said the U.S. was "doing everything we can" to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, but on the other hand, allowing Iranian military commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani "to be the ground force commander" of a Shiite-militia in Iraq. 

She noted that the U.S. provided airpower to help Iraqi security forces and Iran-backed Shiite-militia take the Iraqi city of Tikrit, but opposes Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. 

"It's totally incoherent," McSally said.

She said the inconsistencies have an effect on the Sunni minority in the country, who were persecuted under the former Shiite-dominated government run by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. 

U.S. defense officials say there is no coordination with Iranian-backed forces in Iraq, but acknowledged on Tuesday that some of them shared the same base in eastern Anbar Province,first reported by Bloomberg View. 

The news had prompted outrage from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), an Iraq veteran, who said Iran had supplied the "most advanced, most lethal roadside bombs used against coalition forces." 

"Many American soldiers lost their lives to Iran’s proxies and Iranian-supplied bombs. Further, Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and has been attacking the United States for decades," he said in a statement Tuesday.

"It’s deeply troubling that the President now finds it acceptable to share a military base with this enemy, even while we are attempting to negotiate a deal to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons," he said. 

Director of the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project Fred Kagan, who testified at the hearing, said the report highlighted the challenge of helping Iraq without also empowering Iran, which has increased its influence in Iraq after the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein.  

"Empowering Iran to control Iraq would be disastrous both for the fight against ISIS and for U.S. interests broadly," Kagan said in his prepared testimony. 

He said the Iranian government "repeatedly and explicitly describes the goal of its strategy as expelling the United States from the region entirely" and establishing Iranian hegemony in its place.

He added that said Iranian support for the Shiite-dominated government has worsened sectarian division in Iraq and persuaded Sunnis to turn to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and other groups for protection.

"Iranian-supported and Iranian-controlled forces, in other words, are major drivers of ISIS support and recruitment," Kagan said. "Backing them will make the problem worse rather than better. The trouble is that Iranian forces and proxies are now spread throughout Iraq and integrated with many Iraqi forces fighting ISIS."                             http://thehill.com/policy/defense/246079-gop-lawmaker-us-strategy-t...