Special to WorldTribune.com

Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who heads Iran’s elite Quds Force, said Iran has done far more than the U.S. against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).

“Obama has not done a damn thing so far to confront Daesh: doesn’t that show that there is no will in America to confront it?” Soleimani said according to Iran’s state controlled Mehr. “Daesh” is a derogatory Arabic term for ISIL.

Some Republicans in the U.S. Congress have called on President Barack Obama to send in ground troops in the battle against ISIL. Many observers have said Obama’s strategy of air strikes and aid to Iraqi security forces has largely been a failure.

“Today, in the fight against this dangerous phenomenon, nobody is present except Iran,” Soleimani said, according to the Tasnim news agency.

ISIL has seized key cities in Iraq and Syria in the past week, easily defeating forces from both countries, many of whom fled the battlefield.

“How is it that America claims to be protecting the Iraqi government, when a few kilometers away in Ramadi killings and war crimes are taking place and they are doing nothing?” Soleimani asked.

Iran has said that massacres carried out by ISIL, including the killing of 400 people in Syria’s Palmyra, justifies Teheran’s support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, though Assad’s forces are also notorious for mass killings in a war that began as a popular uprising in 2011.

“We should immunize our borders against this great evil and we should help those countries that are suffering under Daesh,” Soleimani said.

  Iranian commander: Obama ‘has not done a damn thing’ to stop ISIL, Iraq, ISIL, Obama, Qasem Soleimani, Syria