This kind of attack at the K1 Iraqi base in Kirkuk will get worse if we don't inflict disproportionate pain on those responsible:
New rocket attacks in Iraq have killed a US civilian contractor, raising fears on Saturday that violence could escalate in the protest-hit country already engulfed in its worst political crisis in decades.
Washington recently promised "a firm response" to a growing number of attacks on its interests in Iraq, for which no one has claimed responsibility but which Washington blames on pro-Iran factions.
If we figure out that a pro-Iran militia has done this, we should hit an Iranian Revolutionary Guards base. Hard.
And if it is someone else, we need to inflict disproportionate pain on them.
I don't buy that "proportionate" response BS. If an enemy continues to attack you after you respond, your response to the initial attack isn't disproportionate. Once the enemy stops attacking, we can debate whether we went over the line is responding.
UPDATE: Iraq is responding:
An Iraqi general said Sunday that security has been beefed up around the Ain al-Asad air base, a sprawling complex in the western Anbar desert that hosts U.S. forces, following a series of attacks.
Maj. Gen. Raad Mahmoud told The Associated Press that investigations were still underway to determine who was behind the unclaimed attacks on bases across Iraq, including one earlier this month in which five rockets landed inside Ain al-Asad.
Good. But defense isn't enough. The forces making the attacks must be dismantled and leaders killed or imprisoned.
UPDATE: This is a start:
In response to repeated Kata'ib Hizbollah (KH) attacks on Iraqi bases that host Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) coalition forces, U.S. forces have conducted precision defensive strikes against five KH facilities in Iraq and Syria that will degrade KH's ability to conduct future attacks against OIR coalition forces.
The five targets include three KH locations in Iraq and two in Syria. These locations included weapon storage facilities and command and control locations that KH uses to plan and execute attacks on OIR coalition forces.
Recent KH strikes included a 30-plus rocket attack on an Iraqi base near Kirkuk that resulted in the death of a U.S. citizen and injured four U.S. service members and two members of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).
KH has a strong linkage with Iran's Quds Force and has repeatedly received lethal aid and other support from Iran that it has used to attack OIR coalition forces.
We can't rest on mere retaliation. This gives the enemy the option of attacking us at rates that they think they can sustain given our response. Going after forces like KH may not always require visible military action as we just took, but we should be taking them down routinely.
UPDATE: We did not hurt Iran enough:
Iran reportedly fired multiple rockets into Baghdad this evening hitting Camp Taji [where US troops are based].
At one level our economic squeeze on Iran is our main weapon to defeat Iran. So escalating to war might be Iran's hope to somehow reverse the bad trends for Iran and rally domestic support. Iran's nutball mullah rulers don't have to be correct about that strategy to carry it out.
But we must protect our troops in Iraq and we must reduce Iran's ability to operate inside Iraq.We need a full-court press of all means inside Iraq to crush Iran's presence and influence.
