Is the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy?

IS | Michael Cochrane

SHIITE MILITIA FIGHTERS SING ANTI-ISLAMIC STATE GROUP SONGS ON THE FRONTLINE NEAR KIRKUK, IRAQ.

ASSOCIATED PRESS/PHOTO BY EMAD MATTI

Senior U.S. military leaders are uncertain whether the involvement of Iranian-based Shiite militias will turn out to be a help or a hindrance in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) in northern Iraq.

“If they perform in a credible way” and free Tikrit from Islamic State control, “then it will, in the main, have been a positive thing in terms of the counter-ISIL campaign,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.

Dempsey did not address Iran’s history of state-sponsored terrorism as a potential destabilizing factor in Iraq. His primary concern seemed to be the prospect of sectarian tension between the Shiite militia fighters and Tikrit’s mostly Sunni population.