On Fox & Friends this morning, Breitbart National Security editor and Major General Horner Chair of Military Theory at the Marine Corps University Dr. Sebastian Gorka warned that any intervention against the Islamic State in Iraq on the part of Iran was not a positive development for the United States, as the warring factions of Islam are both fighting to establish a caliphate.
Discussing the rise of Iran in the battle against ISIS with host Clayton Morris, Dr. Gorka argued that, from the perspective of the West, a Shiite caliphate in the Middle East would be just as much, if not more, of a threat as a Sunni caliphate. “Iran is just fighting for the same kind of hegemonic position in the Middle East as the Sunni extremists like ISIS,” he explained, “[Iran] is just building, building, building in the vacuum that we created when we pulled our troops out [of Iraq].”
Dr. Gorka warned against supporting Iran’s intervention to weaken the Islamic State, even if their efforts do serve to diminish the influence of the Sunni group in the region. “Just because they are fighting ISIS forces doesn’t make them friends of the United States,” he argued. “After they kill the Sunni extremists, they are going to come after us.” Dr. Gorka noted that Iran has a long history as modern history’s most prolific sponsor of terrorism: “This is a country that has sponsored terrorism against the United States for more than 30 years… this is a state that is committed to undermining U.S. interests in the region and globally.”
In order to defeat radical Islam, Dr. Gorka noted, the United States must properly identify Islamist ideology, both Sunni and Shiite, as the enemy. “We have to take down the ideology, just like we did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. We have to prove that it is illegitimate.”
Understanding Islamist ideology, he concluded, requires accepting that Sunni vs. Shiite radical Islamism is “like Pepsi vs. Coke here. We have Coca-Cola as the Sunnis– ISIS now instead of Al Qaeda– and along comes Pepsi… it’s a lose-lose from the point of view of American security.”
“We look like Diet Coke at the moment,” Morris laments. Gorka laughingly added, “Yes, and we’re the RC Cola!”
Watch the full segment from this morning’s Fox & Friends below, and read Dr. Gorka’s analysis of the Sunni vs. Shiite struggle in the Middle East here.
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