Kuwaiti Professor Abdallah Nafisi: Fighting ISIS Is Not Our Priority

In a TV interview, Kuwaiti Professor Abdallah Nafisi said that from strategically speaking, fighting ISIS was not a priority. "It is Iran that is dangerous, he said. Nafisi further said: "The West ignited it all, and the ultimate goal is a Sunni-Sunni war."

Following are excerpts from the interview, which aired on November 29, 2014 on the Saudi 4Shabab TV channel:

Abdallah Nafisi: Our borders are being threatened by the Houthis, yet we are engaging in a war up north?! What are we doing there?

Interviewer: This is due to all the scare tactics by organizations like Al-Qaeda and ISIS…

Abdallah Nafisi: As countries, we must not be influenced by such scare tactics. We should consider things from a strategic point of view. It's just like Kissinger wrote in The Troubled Partnership. Please read it. It is called The Troubled Partnership. I don't know if it was translated into Arabic but I read it in English as a Ph.D. student. He said that there are lots of problems among the NATO partners, but strategic considerations bind them together. They head these considerations as a political and strategic line. How does it serve our interests when our pilots bomb Hama or Fallujah?

[…]

[ISIS] is not a real state. Just a bunch of guys with Kalashnikovs.

Interviewer: But not so long ago, they took over all the cities of Iraq…

Abdallah Nafisi: This is not how you conduct strategic thinking. They did not take all the cities. Mosul fell, and so did Baiji…

Interviewer: They got all the way to Baghdad.

Abdallah Nafisi: No, they did not.

Interviewer: You hear their slongan..

Abdallah Nafisi: They have powerful media, that's true, but it was the West that ignited it all, and the ultimate goal is a Sunni-Sunni war. That's what the West wants: a Sunni-Sunni war. And while we are busy with that war, the Houthis will invade us from the south, and the Iranians will march on Najran, Jizan, and 'Asir. And then, before you know it, they will be all over the place.

[…]

We must place Iran under a microscope. It is Iran that is dangerous. If Iran sets up shop in Yemen, just imagine what will happen. It will never leave.

Interviewer: But let me ask you a simple question: Instead of getting into all these confrontations with Iran, why not fight our shared war against ISIS and the Islamist groups in Iraq?

Abdallah Nafisi: Absolutely not. Iran does not even consider you an equal. Iran has taken control of four Arab capitals, and together with the Americans, it plays one big game across the Middle East. You are not on par with Iran right now, so you cannot form an alliance with it. You should confront this [Iranian-American] alliance by opening a new partnership with Turkey.

[…]