CENTCOM commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told the House Armed Services Committee that the US is in the process of deploying missile defenses into Iraq, preparing to counter any future Iranian missile strikes.
McKenzie cited a January incident in which Iran struck the Ayn al-Asad air base in Iraq. This was retaliation for the US assassinating Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and no further exchanges have happened, since the US hasn’t assassinated any more Iranians. This inevitably raises the quest of if it would be easier to avoid Iranian missiles by not attacking Iran in the first place.
The timing is also curious, as the deployment of new US military assets into Iraq comes as US officials are reviewing all Iraq operations, and cites Iran as a threat even though the Pentagon conceded that Iran is much less of a threat now.
CENTCOM is likely aware that Iran is always a good excuse to send more military assets to anything near Iran. Still, this undercuts other narratives coming out of the Pentagon right now, and it seems to be months after the fact.
Oh Goody -Then Iraq can use them against Israel what a lovely war we will have then
I betcha that those air defenses will be in Iraq, but not under the control of Iraq
Precisely. Iraq needs to get some air-defense equipment of its own from Russia. And they need to follow through on expelling ***ALL*** US presence: troops, “contractors”, spooks, and embassy personnel.
Nah, no Arab state has the balls to do anything against Israel. They are better at killing their own people.
Not when Israel has the world’s lone superpower backing them unconditionally. Notice how Israel can keep bombing Syria even though Syria has Russia as an ally.
Will someone please makeup their mind. The last article just read that Iran was blown way out of proportion and now that they are suffering horribly from COVID-19 they have to turn their attention inward. Which would allow the US to stop all these encampments aroung the Iranian border and now this….
You are being entirely too rational. Sorry, but America does not do reason.
Whoever will be the next circus director of the world (it appears to be Trump or Biden) will still have to tame two tigers: the MIC and the Pentagon. They are dangerous if they are not fed well. Despite all of his declared intentions, Trump has tamed neither.
This as part of our withdrawal strategy.
Mock
DC CEO: I don’t care! Find a way to sell more hardware. Your future lobbyist career depends on it.
McKenzie: Yes sir!
Once again…this is about seeking excuses to build up US military assets in the regime in preparation for an *already decided on* war with Iran.
They’re just slowly “boiling the frog” while building up to the point where they can “justify” a war based on some manufactured incident – such as the two dead US soldiers in Iraq. How many minutes will pass before they blame *that* on Iran? Two dead soldiers might not be enough – maybe it will require ten or twenty or a hundred… Who cares? There *will* be a “justification” and there *will* be a war.
So Iraq has lost its status as a sovereign country after 17 years of wonderful US help to make it a democracy?? Iraq has asked the USA to leave, not bring in more trouble.
As if no Iraqi could be pissed off enough after 18 years of destruction and occupation to want to harm US Imperial soldiers. LOL