Western countries have played a key role in the creation of the so-called Islamic State (IS) militant group to ensure Israel's security and disrupt the Muslim world in the cause of advancing their interests, the director of an Iranian newspaper commented in an interview with the Time magazine published on Thursday.
"We believe that the West has been influential in the creation of ISIS (another acronym for IS which stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) for a number of reasons. First to engage Muslims against each other, to waste their energy and in this way Israel's security would be guaranteed or at least enhanced," said Abdullah Ganji, the managing director of Javan newspaper, which is believed to reflect the views of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
"Secondly, an ugly, violent and homicidal face of Islam is presented to the world. And third, to create an inconvenience for Iran."
Ganji went on to say that much of IS — its propaganda, structure and weapons — were all the work of the West. "A group that claims to be an Islamic one and has no sensitivity towards occupied Muslim lands in Palestine but is bent on killing Muslims as its first priority, it's not a movement with roots in Islamic history. Not only many of its weapons but its methods of operation, its propaganda methods and many of its internal structures are Western, that's why we are distrustful of the roots of ISIS."
"As the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei] also said, [the coalition forces] have on a number of times even made weapon drops for ISIS. How is it that they have laser-guided precision munitions and bombs but drop weapons for the wrong people? And not only once but at least a number of times," he said, referring to incidents when weapons dropped from US aircraft landed in IS-controlled areas rather than the intended Kurdish-controlled areas.
Distrust of US
"Iran cannot cooperate with the United States against ISIS because it doesn't trust America, it doesn't believe in their honesty in combating ISIS. Iran can't trust the US to begin something and to continue to the end. It acts patronizingly and will change its path whenever it feels it is justified. We are also worried that the US is using ISIS as a pretext to return its troops into Iraq," Ganji said.
"I believe that the US prefers a weak ISIS that cannot be a major threat but will still cause inconvenience for Iran, Iraq and Syria and generally what they themselves called the Shiite crescent."
