Tag: Iraq
How Soleimani’s death affects Syria
Bassam Barabandi writes:
First: Let us not forget that Soleimani’s project was to drive away American forces from Iraq and Syria. He was in no hurry in Syria because he was busy building the foundations to enhance the Iranian political, military, security, economic, popular, and militia influence in Syria, and he surely achieved quite a lot in this field.
Second: Bashar al-Assad is closer to the Iranian axis than the Russian within the Syrian regime. The new IRGC commander may be forced to compel Assad to take decisions in the coming days to prove his loyalty to Iran and to demonstrate that the new commander is in control. This is one of the things that we should monitor in the coming days.
Third: The Assad regime is split, as never before, into two very distinct wings: pro-Iran and pro-Russia. The Iranian wing is led by Bashar al-Assad, who received his advice/ instructions directly from Qassem Soleimani, This was evident in Bashar’s visit to Tehran. Iran also has its own influence in the military and many officers are affiliated with it, but the most dangerous thing is the almost absolute influence of Iran in the countryside of Deir Ezzor Governorate on the West Bank of the Euphrates, in some areas surrounding Damascus, and local and non-local militias located in separate areas inside Syria.
The vacuum and confusion in Iranian decision-making will be very bad for the pro-Iranian wing within the Assad regime, as this wing contains Bashar al-Assad, the major weakness of the Assad regime as a whole.
We do not know how the newly appointed commander Ismail Qaani will look at Bashar Al-Assad, but if he is to lead a more institutionalized position, Assad’s position will be weaker and weaker, and it will not be unlikely with time to get rid of him in a settlement with the rest of the parties.
If Qaani adopts a more centralized policy, he will ask for more concessions from the pro-Iran wing in the regime, which will make Assad look more miserable and ridiculous than previously as part of Iranian messages to Russia and other countries that its influence remains strong in Syria.
Fourth: Russia may take advantage of this opportunity, as the conflict with the Iranian axis looks like a cold war, which is marked by some fierce confrontations that have not yet been resolved. Despite the relative stability in sharing influence between them, the instability of Syria makes the game of influence. Its redistribution always possible, just as was the case of influence between America and Turkey and between Turkey and Russia.
Soleimani’s viciousness will add to Russia’s influence in Syria, and it has to move quickly in several areas. It will ultimately lead to Iranian losses and Russian gains that cannot be appreciated now, but Russia will inevitably try to expand its gains as much as possible. Today, Hizbollah withdrew its forces from some areas in Zabadani, and pro-Russian forces took over.
Neither the Iranian administration nor Qaani and his aides are oblivious to Russia’s aspirations to reduce their influence. They know they must increase their support for the local and non-local militias that they finance. In order for them to achieve this as quickly as possible, Lebanese Hezbollah’s influence on other militia should increase to rectify the central decision vacuum.
Fifth: Iran’s focus on maintaining its influence in the areas under the Assad regime’s control will give comfort to the American spheres of influence, which will reduce the risk of fighting with Iranian militias in eastern Syria for now. If clashes take place, it will not be that Iran wants to expand its presence as much as it will be part of revenge propaganda for Qassem Soleimani. Consequently, the project of military resistance that the Iranian wing in the Assad regime is trying to activate against the American forces in the northeast will not be completed in the planned way in the short term.
Sixth: Turkey is the least affected by Soleimani’s absence in Syria, as opposed to its impact on its interests in Iraq and near-open intelligence cooperation in its struggle against Kurdish forces and political projects.
Seventh: The changes of Iran’s influence in Syria will not be visible in the short run, but rather, the real changes will be in the long-term erosion of Iran’s influence in Syria for the benefit of the other parties. Qaani will need demonstrate more power and influence over media and local coverage to proactively cover the losses.
Eighth: The Iranian project has been benefiting from the American presence in Iraq and Syria, as the Americans were carrying the biggest burden in confronting ISIS. The Iranians were claiming that they were resisting ISIS while they were building militias to control Iraq and to counter the Americans when ready. The Iranian direct escalation toward the US in Iraq started in October 2019, which may reflect that Iranian felt confident and strong enough to be in Iraq alone without other partners.
The real danger from ISIS will arise from Iranian pressure on the Iraqi government to get the American forces out of Iraq.
Many things can happen in the coming days/weeks that may affect Syria:
1. The Iraqi government is yet to make a decision to withdraw US forces from Iraq. Does this mean withdrawal from Iraq as a whole or will the American forces remain in the Kurdistan Regional Government? If it is from the entire country, then the question will be what is the future of the American forces in Syria? From a legal and logistical point of view, will the Iraqi government allow the Americans to use airspace and crossings to transport forces to and from Syria?
2. Legally, if the Iraqi parliament and the Iraqi government pass the decision to withdraw the American forces from Iraq, will this need a whole year from the minute the decision is made to be implemented? If yes, then the Americans will have that period of time to maneuver and their leverage in Syria will be limited.
3. If Iran and its militias attack US bases in northeastern Syria directly or indirectly – will that change the US calculation and cause the Americans to leave Syria? Or will they fight back? How will the SDF forces behave? And the Russians? And Arab clans?
4. The border between Syria and Iraq is another area that must be watch since the Popular Mobilization Forces are in control of most of the border areas, not only the crossings.
5. If the United States leaves for any reason in the coming months, what forces will fill the void? Iran or Russia?
6. Iran will be more stubborn in its positions regarding the Constitutional Committee, Idlib, and the countryside of Aleppo.
7. If the US forces stay in KRG areas against Baghdad wishes, will that step separate the KRG from Iraq? And how will this affect with the Kurdish areas in Syria?
8. A new understanding could be reached between Iran and the international community in which a process of negotiation on all files and concerns starts again, freezing the situation for a while.
9. A new political crisis could occur in Iraq between pro-Iranian parties and both the Kurds and the Sunni, who see the American are the only guarantors to protect them physically as well as their interests in the state. This may delay any decision to have a new prime minister and increase tension inside Iraq.
10. The difficult economic and social situation in Iran and the popular anti-regime movements in both Lebanon and Iraq will make Iranian decisions weaker than they claim and the size of the Iranian adventure much less than now hoped. The Iranian goal is survival of the regime. Any direct military confrontation with the US will weaken the regime without gaining any real benefits.
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Iran is winning this round
The big news of the day is that Tehran will maintain its commitment to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections even though it will no longer be bound by the operational limits in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA or Iran nuclear deal). Why would it do that?
Because it is smart. There are several benefits:
- It will give the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese reason not to withdraw from the nuclear deal, thus keeping them split from the Americans;
- It will make it clear to the international community how far they are willing to go in preparing the materials needed for nuclear weapons, and at what point they are prepared to stop if given some sanctions relief;
- It will give them the moral high ground while possibly continuing clandestine nuclear weapons design, much of which can be done by computers without nuclear materials.
Washington meanwhile is losing on several fronts. It has had to suspend anti-ISIS operations in Iraq and Syria, its claims of an imminent attack on US targets are less than credible, there are credible claims that Soleimani was carrying in Baghdad a peace overture to Saudi Arabia, and pressure to remove US forces from Iraq, or at least from Arab-controlled Iraq, is growing. The assassination of Soleimani has tamped down the anti-Iranian demonstrations in Iraq and has quieted the demonstrations against the Islamic Republic inside Iran as well. Even Riyadh is asking Washington to tone it down.
The Republican wizkids like Senator Rubio are speculating about US support for Kurdistan’s secession from Iraq, so that the American troops could stay there. But he forgets: Kurdistan has lost control of Kirkuk, without which its oil revenue is nowhere near sufficient to maintain it as an independent state, not to mention Turkey’s, Syria’s, and Iran’s reactions as well as China’s and Russia’s. Does Marco want the US to go to war to restore Kirkuk to Kurdistan’s control?
Donald Trump likes to upset the apple cart and create crisis, then pretend to resolve it, as he has done with the trade wars. This one won’t be an easy pretense. He has made Americans far less safe not only from Iranian attacks but also from ISIS and Al Qaeda, which are no doubt enjoying the relief. The only Iranians endangered so far other than Soleimani are Iranian-Americans, who are reportedly being stopped at our borders in droves and sent to secondary interrogation. I’ve been there and done that–it is not fatal–but it helps our enemies to claim that America only believes in equal rights for non-immigrant white people, which is pretty much the case for this Administration.
Hillary Clinton was correct when she said Donald Trump did not have the temperament to be president. Republicans in the Senate know that as well as anyone else. There is a good chance killing Soleimani will hurt Trump’s chances for re-election as well as Republican hopes of maintaining their majority in the Senate. It is high time they step up and provide the conditions for a serious and fair trial on the impeachment charges. John Bolton’s new-found willingness to testify if subpoened provides a golden opportunity. It would be truly ironic if Bolton and the Iranians were to be the causes of Trump’s undoing.
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Stevenson’s army, January 4 and 5
January 5
– Iran says it has 35 targets within range for possible retaliation, prompting President Trump to say the US has 52 targets. Who will blink first?
– NYT now confirms what LA Times reported yesterday, that Trump’s choice of assassination option greatly surprised his advisers. NYT says Trump wanted to hit Suleimani after contractor was killed in Kirkuk but deferred until evidence of imminent attack could be found. Some sources call evidence “razor thin.”
– WH sent war powers notification to Congress, but kept whole text classified.
– Former adviser Emma Sky says US strike hurts US-Iraq relationship.
– NYT says killing also strengthens ISIS.
-Good article in Atlantic on likely Iranian actions. Note links to CRS report saying most Iranian actions against US since 1979 have been by proxies and IISS analysis of Iranian strategy and a global military power site.
– On the political front, Atlantic has good piece arguing that Trump has done well with congressional Republicans by charming personal contact, an unreported practice. And it’s true that Obama did little in that regard with Rs or Ds.
January 4
Jonathan Swan of Axios has reported that the three more persuasive
arguments to use with President Trump are: 1. It’s the biggest ever. 2.
It’s never been done before. 3. Obama did the opposite. The Suleimani
assassination ticks all three.
– WaPo describes the weekend meetings in Florida when Trump demands prompt action.
-LA Times says Trump’s advisers were surprised by his support for the assassination option.
– NYT emphasizes the final authorization, when the operation might have been called off if Iraqi officials were part of the convoy.
– An earlier NYT story discusses refusals by G.W. Bush and Obama to kill Suleimani because of the likely consequences.
– WaPo foresees a cyber attack as the most likely Iranian response. DHS says it’s ready.
– Iraq is likely to demand withdrawal of US forces.
– WaPo notes earlier polling on US public opinion on a conflict with Iran.
– Lawfare writers say the situation is very complex under both domestic and international law.
– VP Pence misleadingly tweeted that Suleimani “assisted” the 9/11 hijackers.
– My take: the action was probably legal — and probably unwise.
And in political analysis, Lee Drutman argues that the Framers worried about precisely the political polarization we now have. Is proportional representation the best answer?
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Marching towards different wars
Both Iran and the United States are signaling escalation in the wake of the assassination of Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani. Tehran said it had identified 35 targets. President Trump responded with a tweet threat against 52:
Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!
Both have the capability, and perhaps the will. It all sounds strikingly symmetrical.
But there the parallel ends. The wars they are contemplating are different. Iran can hit 35 US targets, but only using proxy forces in other countries or cyber attacks. The US can hit 52 sites, but only with stand-off weapons like drones and cruise missiles, in addition to cyber attacks. That I suspect makes cyber attacks less likely: the Americans presumably have the greater capability in that domain, but they also have far more to lose if the Iranians prove even marginally competent. Will Tehran care much if its citizens don’t have internet access?
Neither the US nor Iran wants a traditional ground war. The Iranians because they would lose, should the Americans deploy the kind of force they did in attacking Iraq in 2003. But that isn’t happening. The American electorate is not prepared to support that kind of effort, and the Administration has done nothing to try to mobilize it. President Trump can deploy a few thousand additional troops to the Middle East to protect American embassies and other facilities, but hundreds of thousands are not in the cards.
Trump is hoping his threats of escalation will bring Iran to the negotiating table, where he hopes to get a “better” agreement than President Obama’s nuclear deal. It’s the North Korea gambit: loud threats, some action, then hugs and kisses. If that fails, he will try a stand-off and cyber attack. If he has a game plan beyond that, he has kept it a good secret. He has so far been unwilling to loosen sanctions, which is what the Iranians want.
The Iranians are fighting on different battlefields. They may threaten proxy and cyber attacks, and even indulge in some, but their better bets are forcing the US troops out of Iraq (there is an advisory vote tomorrow on that in the Iraqi parliament) and acquiring all the material and technology they need to build nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-un got respect once he had nukes. Why shouldn’t the Supreme Leader expect the same?
Nothing about American intervention in the Middle East in the past two decades has brought much more than grief to the United States. Trillions of dollars and thousands of American deaths later, we have accomplished little. Iran has gained from the removal of arch-rival Saddam Hussein, protected its ally Bashar al Assad from insurgency, strengthened its position on Israel’s northern borders, and helped the Houthis in Yemen to harass Saudi Arabia.
President Trump had it right when he ran in 2016 on avoiding new Middle East wars and bringing American troops home. But that requires a serious strategy and commitment to diplomacy and alliances that he has been unwilling to make. Now he risks getting the Americans sent home and confronting an Iran that has nuclear capabilities. You tell me who is fighting on the right battlefield.
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Stevenson’s army, January 3
Columbia Journalism Review has a good collection of commentary on the US assassination of General Suleimani,which I’ll paste below.
Two other points: It’s fortunate that the US military blocked VIP travel to Iraq and Syria starting Dec 16 and supposedly lasting until Jan 15. I’ll be surprised if they allow it any time soon.
Even Turkey delayed sending its troops to Libya until the parliament had authorized it.
In addition to the items linked to below, see this by Heather Hurlburt and this by Dan Byman.
The killing of Qassem Suleimani and the road to war with Iran
By Jon Allsop
In the early hours of the morning, local time, state media in Iraq reported that Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s top security and intelligence official, had been killed in a drone strike at Baghdad’s international airport, along with figures tied to Iran-backed Iraqi militias. In the United States, where it was Thursday night, the news quickly spread, albeit with key details missing; cable news shows and one broadcast network, CBS, cut into their programming with portentous reports that something serious had happened. An hour or so later, the US government confirmed that its military had killed Suleimani at the direction of the president. Trump remained strangely quiet, though he did tweet a picture of an American flag. In response, Iranian officials tweeted their country’s flag, and threats of revenge. Such is the road to war in 2020.
Some context: Suleimani was greatly influential in Iran and widely revered by his countrymen. As head of the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, he was responsible for Iran’s prodigious maneuvering throughout the Middle East. According to a former operative of the Central Intelligence Agency who spoke to Dexter Filkins in 2013 for The New Yorker, “Suleimani is the single most powerful operative in the Middle East.” In recent years, Suleimani was influential in buttressing the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator, and other efforts that cost lives—including those of US troops—in countries from Iraq to Lebanon. According to the New York Times, Trump’s plan to kill Suleimani was initiated last week, after the administration accused an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia of killing an American contractor in an attack on an Iraqi military base. The militia denied involvement; the US bombed some of the militia’s bases anyway. Afterward, when militia members sieged the US embassy in Baghdad (staffers were trapped inside; none were hurt), American officials blamed Suleimani for being the instigator.
Presidents Obama and Bush never took shots to kill Suleimani, fearing war with Iran. Trump went ahead and did it. Does that mean we’re now at war with Iran? Experts’ initial reactions, it seems, have fallen on a spectrum—from let’s keep things in perspective to war is now inevitable to we’re already there. (In The Atlantic, Andrew Exum, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy under Obama, wrote that the killing of Suleimani “doesn’t mean war, it will not lead to war, and it doesn’t risk war. None of that. It is war.”) Two points of consensus emerged: that we are in uncharted territory and that whatever happens next will not be good. “No ‘hot take’ makes any sense now,” Rasha Al Aqeedi of Irfaa Sawtak, a site associated with the US-funded Middle East Broadcasting Networks, wrote. “None of us who work on Iraq closely ever anticipated a scenario without him.”
Nevertheless, hot takes abounded—on Twitter, where everybody suddenly seemed to be an expert on Iran, and in the news. (In particular, a CNBC piece—“America just took out the world’s no. 1 bad guy”—took a lot of heatonline.) Cable shows invited guests with close ties to the military-industrial complex: Fox News hosted Bush stalwarts Karl Rove and Ari Fleischer; MSNBC interviewed Brett McGurk, a diplomat involved in Iraq policy during the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations; CNN had on Max Boot, a Washington Post columnist who was a vocal proponent of the Iraq war. For many progressive commentators, it was all a bit too 2003 for comfort. “Cable news is hard-wired to support war,” Carlos Maza, formerly of Vox, tweeted. “It relies heavily on ex-military, ex-national security people for commentary, and routinely marginalizes anti-war voices.”
Much has changed since the early 2000s, including Boot’s perspective. He has recanted his support for the Iraq war and warned that war with Iran would be worse. Still, as I wrote last year amid escalating tensions between the US and Iran, much mainstream coverage of the countries’ relationship has been too quick to paint Iran as the menacing, unilateral aggressor, and has parroted US government talking points without applying due skepticism.
Last night, as reporters scrambled to fill in the details of Suleimani’s killing, news outlets turned repeatedly to press releases, including the Pentagon’s assurance that the strike on Suleimani “was aimed at deterring future attack plans.” As the Post’s Josh Rogin tweeted, “By the Pentagon’s own logic, if Iran retaliates, the strike mission failed its key goal. Remember that.” That’s sound advice. Already, Iran is promising “harsh retaliation.”
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Escalation dominance
No American should mourn Qassem Suleimani, but his death at the hands of the US requires careful consideration of the consequences. By killing the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, the US has jumped many rungs of the escalation ladder in its confrontation with Iran, which had already heated up with US attacks on Iraqi militia forces earlier in the week. The Administration is betting that Tehran will recognize that the US is so dominant that it can gain little by responding. Washington is also signaling that it is prepared to withdraw its forces from Iraq, since that is a possible, perhaps likely, political consequence.
The first proposition is dubious. Iran prides itself on resistance to the US and has the capability to do serious harm to American interests in the Middle East and beyond. While it may be difficult for Tehran to kill an American military commander, it is not unthinkable. Nor is such a mirror image attack the only possibility. Iran and its proxies have killed many Americans in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Tehran has capabilities that extend throughout the Middle East and into Europe, Latin America, and even the American heartland.
Ultimately US military power is vastly greater than Iran’s, which is piddling by comparison. But the US public is far from ready for a war with Iran in which we might lose thousands if not tens of thousands of troops and civilians, not to mention ships and planes. When it comes to breaking the will to fight, Iran is likely to be able to absorb far more punishment than the US. As many as half a million Iranians died in the eight-year Iran/Iraq war. Fewer than 7000 Americans have been killed since 2001 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The killing of Iraqi Kataib Hizbollah commander al-Muhandis along with Suleimani puts the Iraqi government in a particularly difficult spot. No doubt there are lots of Iraqis who won’t mourn al-Muhandis in private, as he left a swathe of death and destruction, especially but not only among Sunnis. He had impeccable terrorist credentials from his time in Kuwait in the 1980s, but he was also credited by many Iraqis with helping to fight off and defeat the Islamic State after 2015. Besides, deadly American military action without Iraqi consent on Iraqi soil against Iraqi citizens can please few Iraqi politicians in public.
US withdrawal from Iraq, if that is what Iraqi politics are going to demand, would be a big prize for Iran, which seeks client states there and in Syria that will give it strategic depth and on-the-ground access to its Hizbollah proxies in Lebanon as well as proximity to the Israeli border. Like the US, Iran seeks to confront its adversaries outside its borders rather than inside. US withdrawal would enable it to do that and consolidate its projection of power all the way to the Mediterranean.
So President Trump has thrown the dice, betting that Iran will break and that Iraq won’t throw the Americans out. It may be churlish, but true, to mention that he got elected on pledges to avoid new conflicts in the Middle East. Not to mention that war with Iran is nowhere in the current Congressional Authorization to Use Military Force. It might almost make you think the President is trying to distract attention from the Senate’s impending impeachment trial. It wouldn’t be the first time he has taken a big risk for little apparent gain. Nor would it be the first time he put his personal electoral interests ahead of the nation’s security.
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