A report from The New York Times that said President Trump considered attacking an Iranian nuclear site last week seems to have spooked Iran. Iraqi officials told The Associated Press that an Iranian general delivered a message this week to its allies in the region to be on high alert and avoid provoking tensions with the US.
With Joe Biden expected to be inaugurated on January 20th, the Trump administration is ramping up its “maximum pressure” campaign in hopes it will make it impossible for Biden to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal. The Times report caused some to fear that a military strike could be added to the “maximum pressure.”
Iraq served as a stage for a US military strike on Iran at the beginning of the year when the US assassinated Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. The series of events that led to the general’s killing was sparked by a rocket attack on a base in Kirkuk, Iraq, that killed a US contractor. The US blamed the attack on the Shia militia Kataib Hezbollah, but it was later revealed that ISIS could have been the culprit.
The drone strike that killed Soleimani also killed Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who led the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF), a group of Iraqi-state-sponsored militias formed in 2014 to fight ISIS. The US provocation enraged many in Iraq and caused an uptick in rocket attacks on US convoys and bases housing US troops in the country.
The Trump administration blames all of these attacks on Iran, but there are plenty of forces in the country with their own motives to fire on the US besides militias that receive support from Tehran. Some groups just want the US to leave Iraq, while others like ISIS could benefit from a war between the US and Iran.
An official told The Washington Post that President Trump would be ready to respond against Iran if any American killing in the region can be “tied back to instructions from Iran.” The president’s comments suggest that if an American is killed in Iraq between now and January 20th, it could result in a military strike on Iran.
With all of these factors at play and an incoming administration that could seek diplomacy with Tehran, Iran has every reason to avoid provoking a military confrontation with the US.
Anti war surprises me as this article of new york times is pure propaganda.
Participation in Antiwar is sometimes like watching a train wreck; leftist anti-American carnage porn, immodest to watch, but you can’t help it.
Or, better, dancing with the children of Lord of the Flies. dressed in blood and decorated with feathers, shaking a pointy stick at the evil orange man and his stooges.
An Iraq pullout would be scuttled by an outbreak of U.S.-Iran proxy war, so naturally both Trump and Iran would be alarmed in their own ways for their own reasons.
Trump wants to pull out of Iraq completely, as Shia Baghdad is effectively bought and there is no reason to retain an armed presence. In fact, the very presence of U.S. troops could be used to scuttle the American hold on Iraq, if for no other reason than MIC looting of the U.S. treasury.
Iran can no longer fight a proxy war in Iraq effectively without Soleimani. Nor does entering into a state of official war that ends as the Korean War never did, in an unending histile truce, serve their interests. America leaving, is now the desired outcome over dreams of glorious proxy war.
We’ve entered a new phase of the Forever Wars, with perhaps a tipping point of U.S. war planners and those of their putative victims realizing they’re Euro pawns, with any conflict certainly benefiting Europe far more than themselves.