West must not co-operate with Iran in war on ISIS, EP vice-president demands

Iran is the world's greatest exporter of terrorism and the West must not make an ally of the regime to defeat Islamic State, the vice-president of the European Parliament has warned.

Tehran has huge institutions whose sole aim is exporting its Islamic fundamentalism, and asking for their help is like 'telling an arsonist to put out a fire', Ryszard Czarnecki said.

He wrote in a blog on the Huffington Post website: "Both the West and Iran seek to destroy ISIS, but for far different reasons.

"The West wants to protect the fragile democracy in Iraq and, at the same time, weaken the Assad dictatorship in Syria. Iran fears the loss of its control over Iraq, which it had accomplished with the complicity of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"But the West must avoid any alliance with Iran, which seeks only to advance its own agenda.

"Indeed, Iran has been the greatest exporter of terrorism in all corners of the world. If it wants to destroy ISIS, there must be ulterior motives, and they go far beyond a clash of Shiites vs. Sunnis.

"Allying with or appeasing one group of extremists to neutralise another is a big mistake, especially when one is a state that sponsors extremism and Islamic fundamentalism as a tool and state policy.

"Tehran has established huge institutions, including the notorious Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards solely to pursue the objective of exporting its Islamic fundamentalism - which it needs as a pillar of its survival.

"No sane person would seek help or cooperation from an arsonist to put out the fire."

Mr Czarnecki also praised Iranian Resistance leader Maryam Rajavi's demand that the West needs a firm policy that halts Tehran's terror machine and evicts them from the region, especially Syria and Iraq, to resolve the crisis of the expansion of Islamic fundamentalism.

He quoted Mrs Rajavi's statement that: "The Iranian regime's participation in the anti-ISIS coalition is a hundred times more dangerous than any form of Islamic fundamentalism, under the cloak of Shiite or Sunni Islam, since that participation would provide the regime the room to act and to go on the offensive and engulf other regional countries in death and devastation."

Mr Czarnecki added: "Therefore, giving a role to Iran's despotic regime in the fight against ISIS in Iraq or in Syria would neither stop the regime's nuclear development nor would it put an end to ISIS. Rather, it would fuel the ISIS propaganda because the Iranian dominance in the region would only intensify the sectarian conflict.

"Tehran must be made to feel the heat that comes from its policy; this can happen only by the West making the cost too exorbitant - and not through concessions."