'ISIS will benefit' from the Iran Nuclear Deal

The US and other world powers struck a landmark deal with Iran over its nuclear program this week, and the agreement might benefit one group that the US hadn't counted on — the Islamic State.

Hassan Hassan, an associate fellow at the think tank Chatham House and coauthor of the recent book "ISIS: Inside The Army of Terror," told The Wall Street Journal that the nuclear deal could make already-disaffected Sunnis feel even more like the US and Iran are conspiring against them.

Iraqi security forces hold a flag of the Islamic State group 

they captured during an operation outside Amirli, some 

105 miles north of Baghdad, Iraq, September 1, 2014.

"ISIS will benefit a lot from this deal; segments of the Sunni community in the region will see Iran as having won and brought in from the dark," Hassan said.

The Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh), a Sunni terror group, already capitalizes on Sunni grievances for recruitment and support. ISIS presents itself as the sole protector of Sunni populations in Iraq and Syria, where Shia-aligned regimes dominate.

CLICK MAP to ENLARGE

And conspiracy theories about US collusion with Iran, a Shia theocracy, add fuel to the flames as Iran expands its influence across the Middle East.

"ISIS has already convinced a number of Sunni tribes that the Iranians are already establishing the Shia crescent," and Sunni interests won’t be protected, Christopher Harmer, a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider last month.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.