Reuters: India imported 13.5 percent more Iranian oil in May compared with April as the country’s biggest refiner Indian Oil Corp bought crude from Tehran after a three-month break, tanker data obtained from trade sources showed. India, Iran’s top client after China, imported about 255,200 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil last month, down 0.6 percent from a year ago.
India’s Iran oil imports rise 13.5 pct in May vs Apri
Iranian intervention in Iraq would be risky
Time: President Barack Obama considers his limited options in Iraq. Both the U.S. and Iran have said they will provide qualified military support to the government of Nouri al-Maliki. But Iranian military assistance in Iraq carries substantial risks. Done improperly, it could inflame sectarian tensions or even start an all-out war in the region.
A fictitious ISIL to scare us away from the truth in Iraq
Huffington Post: Amidst a rising discontent against Iraqi prime minister Maliki and his blatant human rights violations, and at a time when the public as well as both Shiite and Sunni leaders including Maliki’s own allies were asking him to step down, the news came out that Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, had been captured and Maliki’s army had fled the city in a matter of just one hour.
Iraq airstrikes carry downside as Obama weighs options
Bloomberg: The airstrikes under consideration by President Barack Obama against Islamic militants in Iraq could prove as inconclusive and chaotic as the war the U.S. thought had ended there in 2011. Unlike the strikes that preceded the Iraq and Afghanistan ground wars, any air offensive this time would come with the encouragement and support of the Iraqi government.
US focus must be on Iran as Iraq falls apart
Fox News: For nearly 35 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Tehran has been the world’s central banker for international terrorism. It has armed and financed terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism on an equal-opportunity basis, including Sunnis like Hamas and Taliban, and Shia like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iraqi Shia who attacked American forces.
Iran – Obama’s new ally?
The Hill: A full-fledged national debate emerged Monday on whether the United States should seek help from Iran in trying to defuse the crisis in Iraq.In Congress, allies were split over the possibility of accepting help from Iran to stop Sunni extremists from overrunning Iraq just more than three years after the end of a war that cost more than 4,000 American lives and billions of dollars.
U.S. considers air strikes on Iraq, holds talks with Iran
Reuters: President Barack Obama considered options for military action to support Iraq’s besieged government on Monday, and U.S. and Iranian officials held talks to stabilise the region, which has been roiled by the advance of Sunni rebels toward Baghdad.Obama has made U.S. action contingent on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s taking steps to broaden his Shi’ite-dominated government.
Iran’s general in Iraq, militants seize key city
AP: In a sign of Iran’s deepening involvement in the Iraqi crisis, the commander of Tehran’s elite Quds Force is helping Iraq’s military and Shiite militias gear up to fight the Sunni insurgents advancing across the country. Washington signaled a new willingness work with Iran to help the Iraqi government stave off the insurgency after years of trying to limit Tehran’s influence in Baghdad.
Iraqi crisis: Terrorist attacks or popular uprising?
UPI: The popular uprising continues unabated in Iraq, with the successive liberation of its cities and the collapse of Maliki’s forces as they retreat and desert en mass in the face of coordinated tribal opposition. Following the shock of dramatic changes that have taken place with lightening speed, a question keeps surfacing: Is what we are witnessing in Iraq an uprising by Iraqis or an attack by a terrorist group?
The back-room deal that explains the chaos in Iraq
Business Insider: In late 2010, Iraq was mired in a political stalemate after ambiguous parliamentary elections left the country. Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force, used “a complex array of enticements,” partly involving a proposed Iraq-Syria oil pipeline, to get Shi’ite and Kurdish leaders onboard with Iran’s preferred government in Iraq.
