The Iranian attacks on American forces across Syria and Iraq are not spillover from Israel's war on Hamas. This struggle is an intensification of an already existing American battle with Iran over influence in Iraq.
After defeating ISIL in Iraq during Iraq War 2.0, I noted that the war for Iraq was entering a ninth phase. A phase of defending Iraq against Iranian efforts to gain control:
How shall we win the current phase--the ninth--in the Iraq War? Will it be a military or societal main effort? ...
So call it Phase IX to defeat Iran in Iraq since July 2017. Iraqi protests against corruption and lack of effective government and services began in 2018 and continue despite extensive violence directed by the Iraqi government and encouraged and enabled by Iran which wants to keep and deepen its foothold in Iraq.
Iran has been pushing its proxy forces and allies inside Iraq and Syria to attack American forces since long before Hamas started a war on October 7, 2023 with its brutal rape and murder invasion of Israel. It is simply propaganda for Iran's assets to say they are "retaliating" for American support for Israel. Iran's efforts simply continue what they have been doing. And America decided to hit Iran's forces inside Iraq on January 4th because Iraq has been unable or unwilling to do so:
A U.S. airstrike on the headquarters of an Iran-backed militia in central Baghdad on Thursday killed a high-ranking militia commander, militia officials said.
Thursday’s strike comes amid mounting regional tensions fueled by the Israel-Hamas war and fears that it could spill over into surrounding countries. It also coincides with a push by Iraqi officials for US-led coalition forces to leave the country.
Iraq has the responsibility for fighting threats to our forces in Iraq and failed to do so. Don't take Iraqi leadership statements at face value:
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Friday said he would set up a dialogue to discuss the removal of the U.S. military presence in his country after an American strike killed an Iraqi militia leader in Baghdad the day prior.Recall the last loud effort that seemingly was about to eject American troops from Iraq.
We must not run from Iraq in frustration and anger, and simply cede Iraq to Iran. That's Iran's objective:
CTP-ISW has assessed that Iranian-backed actors are using almost daily militant attacks and legal and political pressure to force US troops to leave. These Iranian-backed actors have disguised the reason for their attacks, framing them as responses to the Israel-Hamas war. These attacks trigger US self-defense strikes, to which the United States has a legitimate right to protect its servicemembers. The Iranian-backed Iraqi actors exploit these strikes, framing them as violations of Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity and thereby pressuring the Iraqi federal government to pursue the removal of US forces.
Fear of Iran keeps many Iraqis who don't want Iranian influence quiet. America's fight inside has reduced Iranian influence. Prior to Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980, Iran has a lot of influence inside Iraq--infiltrating and setting off bombs--because Shia but Persian Iran could pose as the liberator of Iraq's majority Shias long oppressed by Iraq's minority Sunni Arab government. Indeed, the post-Desert Storm uprising in the Shia south in 1991 was enabled by Iran.
Over time, because America overthrew the hated Saddam in 2003, Iraq's Arab Shias began to lose their rose-colored view of fellow Shia--but Persian--Iranians. Not to mention the abused (and poison gassed) Kurds of northern Iraq. Destroying Saddam didn't give Iraq to Iran. But that false belief in America could undo so much progress we've fought for to stabilize the region. You think our skedaddle debacle in Afghanistan doesn't feed into Iranian propaganda that Iran is unstoppable in the face of a weak-willed America?
So far, we're not reacting to mere words:
"Right now, I'm not aware of any plans (to plan for withdrawal). We continue to remain very focused on the defeat ISIS mission," Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder told a news briefing, using an acronym for Islamic State. He added that U.S. forces are in Iraq at the invitation of its government.
Iraq continues to fight with us to battle ISIL. And stop your objection that Iraq has an interest in battling ISIL even if we leave. We tried that in 2011. And by 2014 ISIL had its shiny new caliphate that sparked Iraq War 2.0. Don't throw away our victory in Iraq that so many fail to see. Be the strong horse and Iraqis will be less fearful of standing with us.
Sadly, the current administration actually intensified the Democratic hallucination of seeing mullah-run Iran as worthy of their love, believing just a little more patience, concessions--and money--can turn Iran into a responsible, successful regional power.
Iran's malignant influence runs through too many of our regional problems to continue with the fantasy that the Iranian mullahs are just one Smart Diplomacy® deal away from being run by bike path-wonks in turbans.
We must adjust our attitudes before Iran goes nuclear.
UPDATE: As I suspected:
Iraq’s prime minister privately told American officials that he wants to negotiate keeping U.S. forces in the country despite his recent announcement that he would begin the process of removing them from the country.
Senior advisers to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told U.S. officials that his declaration was “an attempt to satisfy domestic political audiences” and that Sudani himself “remained committed” to negotiating the coalition’s future presence in Iraq, according to a Jan. 6 State Department cable obtained by POLITICO.
Iraqis need America to resist Iran. But Iraqi leaders fear Iran and the "domestic audience" of killers that Iran has created.
UPDATE: I'm hoping this was thorough and not a mere "signal":
Britain and the United States have launched missile and air strikes against Yemen’s Houthi militants, prompting rebel officials to warn that the allies would pay a “heavy price” in response.
Jets and warships struck dozens of targets overnight in retaliation against weeks of Houthi drone and missile strikes on commercial shipping in one of the world’s busiest waterways.
The war with Iran that Iran began over four decades ago when it captured our embassy and held our staff hostage continues.
UPDATE: I absolutely reject this call for America to retreat from Iraq and lose. So what if it has been 20 years since we overthrew Saddam? We're in a lot of places around the world a lot longer after defeating enemies to defend our victories. Do we really want the region to be worse than it is?
His entire indictment is wrong, but he relies on two in his conclusion. Saying that going to war was based on "lies" of WMD and ties to al Qaeda is wrong and misleading.
First, Iraq had the ability to rapidly re-start chemical weapons production--weapons Iraq had produced and used repeatedly in the 1980s and prior to the Persian Gulf War. After the Persian Gulf War we found we didn't know how advanced Iraq's nuclear weapons research was; and in the 1990s we discovered from a defector that Iraq still had a biological weapons program. And I would be remiss not to again point out that Saddam had an obligation to demonstrate that he had accounted for and destroyed all WMD raw materials. He did not. That failure alone violated the 1991 ceasefire and justified war in 2003. In 2003 we didn't know what we didn't know. We may have been wrong about possession of actual chemical weapons, but the intent was clear.
As for ties to al Qaeda, Nobody ever argued that Saddam helped with 9/11. Indeed, we didn't even argue Saddam supported al Qaeda. But Saddam let al Qaeda use Iraqi territory to hide from us after we invaded Afghanistan following 9/11. And Saddam had clear ties to other terrorists in addition to what we later found out about his quiet ties to al Qaeda. Hell, Clinton certainly thought there were ties in the 1990s.
Nor were Saddam's ties to terrorism and his WMD ambitions the only reasons for going to war.
These two zombie false arguments against the war just won't die.
UPDATE: Iran gets out of the way in order to fight the West to the last Arab:
An online shipping tracker organization reported that the IRGC spy ship Behshad, which provides the Houthis with real-time intelligence has left the Red Sea and is en route to Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan Province, Iran.
UPDATE: Austin's statement on the allied strikes on Houthi forces:
Today's strikes targeted sites associated with the Houthis' unmanned aerial vehicle, ballistic and cruise missile, and coastal radar and air surveillance capabilities.
UPDATE: Hit them until they stay down:
US Central Command said the “follow-on action”, early on Saturday local time against a Houthi radar site, was conducted by the Navy destroyer USS Carney using Tomahawk land attack missiles.
Destruction and not deterrence should be the objective.
UPDATE: I really am sick of the "resistance is futile" crowd in the West when faced with hate-filled fanatics.
To repeat, America should be in the business of creating concerns for raging nutballs--not being concerned and quaking at loud-mouthed fanatics with way more hate than capabilities.
UPDATE: As I wrote several years ago:
Opposing Iran on a broad front is necessary and helps us in the narrow battle for Iraq, where we've been involved since Saddam's Iraq invaded revolutionary Iran in 1980. We can win the narrow front.
The Houthi in Yemen are just one portion of the broad front.
UPDATE: The sponsors of the draft law would need to nearly double that level of support to pass it:
The Iranian-backed Badr Organization announced the submission of a draft law that requires the removal of US forces from Iraq. This law is part of Iran’s decades-old effort to expel US forces from Iraq and the region.
Enough Iraqis should know that telling Americans to leave will hurt Iraq as much as our departure in 2011 did. And the fact that we left voluntarily should ease worries we try to control Iraq.
UPDATE: Exactly:
A policy of broadcasting a desire not to escalate invites the West’s enemies to do exactly that, taking the safe bet that the US is itching to back down.
America should be in the business of creating concerns--not being concerned to the point of near-passivity about small actors with boastful words and a handful of capabilities.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
