Iran gets another "positive" from US

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Jan. 8 that Iran’s influence in Iraq could be “positive.”

Dempsey, who spoke with reporters following a meeting at the Pentagon with Lt. Gen. Benjamin Gantz, chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, said, “If it is a path that ties the two countries [Iran and Iraq] more closely together economically or even politically, as long as the Iraqi government remains committed to inclusivity of all the various groups inside the country, then I think Iranian influence will be positive. But what really matters is where it all goes, and we're watching that very carefully."

Last month, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that “the net effect is positive” of reported Iranian strikes against Islamic State (IS) targets in Iraq.

A poll directed by Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, revealed that only 12% of Americans consider Iran the top threat to the US interests in the Middle East, compared to 70% for IS and 13% for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.