U.S. airstrikes on Iran-linked paramilitaries in Syria this week were a deterrent to attacks on U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq. Yet it appears that Biden’s government was a deliberate refutation of the Trump administration’s wild, dangerous approach to Iraq and Iran.
Trump’s recklessness has almost sparked a regional war. Dealing with the Biden team of Thursday’s airstrikes seems very deliberately un-Trump – but Trump has left Biden with a dangerous enough situation in Iraq that even a more careful, deliberate approach would not be enough to rectify it. .
On Thursday night, US planes bombed Iraqi paramilitary factions on the Syrian-Iraqi border, which the Pentagon said was a deterrent and an attempt to prevent “continuing threats”. An official in one Iraqi paramilitary group told Reuters that the US strikes killed one fighter and wounded four.
The US airstrikes followed a rocket attack on February 15 on a base used by US and partner forces in Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, which killed one civilian contractor and wounded another. A wounded Iraqi citizen died several days later. On February 22, three rockets targeted the US embassy in Baghdad, leaving only material damage.
The Syrian government has “strongly” condemned the US strikes. One of the Iraqi factions targeted, Kataib Hizbullah, also condemned the US “crime”.
US troops are in Iraq as part of the US-led international coalition against ISIS to support Iraqi efforts to fight the jihadist group. In recent years, however, violence with paramilitaries linked to Iran has dared to overshadow the anti-ISIS mission.
Thursday’s airstrikes look almost like a repeat of US airstrikes in December 2019. Then, the Trump administration responded to a deadly rocket attack by bombing Kataib Hizbulllah facilities on the Syrian-Iraqi border, killing 25 fighters and more than 50 to injure. After angry protesters marched on the US embassy, Trump bounced back – in a spectacular escalation from 0 to 60 – by Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary veteran and security official Jamal Jafar (better known as the war name “Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis”) in a drone. The Middle East for days seemed like a broader war between the US and Iran. Tensions only broke after Iranian missile attacks on Iraqi bases that house U.S. troops but did not kill U.S. personnel, which perversely opened the way for de-escalation.
The US presence in Iraq has remained uncertain ever since. Violence in Iraq has increased from time to time, US-led coalition forces have evacuated most of their Iraqi bases, and the Trump administration has almost closed the US embassy in Baghdad. Iraqi paramilitarists maintain that coalition forces are a foreign ‘occupation’.
You may be forgiven for a sense of déjà vu, then, during Thursday’s airstrikes on some of the same Iraqi paramilitary factions, hitting the same stretch of Iraq-Syrian border – and you worry about a repeat of the spiral escalation that began 2020 means.
Yet this latest action by the Biden government also differs in some important respects from Trump’s airstrikes in December 2019.
‘The Biden government seemed eager to lower the temperature at the local level because of the constant atmosphere of near-war fueled by the Trump administration.”
First, the regional context is different. The backdrop for the December 2019 airstrikes was the Trump administration’s campaign of ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran, a strategy whose stated goals effectively amount to a change of government. The rocket fire on US troops in Iraq that sparked those airstrikes in 2019 was apparently part of an asymmetrical response by Iran’s regional partners to destroy US economic sanctions against Iran – after all, Iran could hardly respond through its own US sanctions. to lift.
The Biden government, on the other hand, has expressed its intention to return to the Iran nuclear deal that Trump left behind, promising a easing of economic pressure on Iran. More generally, the Biden government seems eager to lower the temperature regionally because of the constant atmosphere of near-war fueled by the Trump administration.
The messages from the Biden administration surrounding Thursday’s airstrikes reflect the change in the local context. During the announcement of its airstrikes in 2019, the Trump administration emphasized Iraq’s paramilitary ties with Iran. The Pentagon statement concluded with a deterrent warning aimed primarily at Iran: “Iran and its KH proxies must cease their attacks on US and coalition forces and respect Iraq’s sovereignty to prevent further defensive actions by US forces.” Trump actually increased his rhetoric further in the last days of his presidency, threatening to retaliate directly against Iran for rocket fire in Iraq. Some friendly health advice to Iran: if one American is killed, I will hold Iran accountable. Think about it, ”he tweeted in December 2020.
The Biden government, on the other hand, called on the Iraqi factions that they had bombed “Iran-backed militant groups”, but focused mainly on the two specific groups that they said were responsible for recent rocket attacks. When asked by a reporter on Friday what kind of message the strikes sent to Iran, he said: ‘You can not act with impunity. Be careful. “Still, officials have otherwise avoided turning the strikes into a Trump-style US-Iran tussle.
The Riden team’s rhetorical self-control may reflect their awareness of how to deal with a larger alliance with Iran, which is delicate and includes a number of issues, of which the restoration of the nuclear deal in Iran is the overriding priority. They may also be more sensitive to the legality of military action, and how confidently they can attribute responsibility for the Erbil rocket attack.
Even if the Biden government tended to blame Iran for the Erbil attack, the real extent of Iranian control over Iraq’s armed factions is being discussed, especially after the assassination of Suleimani and Muhandis. Without them, these Iran-linked factions have allegedly become criminals and prone to unilateral action.
In addition to its rhetoric, the Biden administration has deviated in other important respects from Trump’s approach. The reported toll of Thursday’s U.S. airstrikes – one fighter, not dozens – was apparently more proportionate to the Erbil rocket. The Biden administration said the bombing was “carried out in conjunction with diplomatic measures”, including consultations with coalition partners whose staff could retaliate against Americans in Iraq.
The emphasis on Biden administration in striking these factions within Syrian territory is another apparent contrast to the Trump administration, which last year kindly provoked condemnation of even Iraqi officials for the US when it unilaterally bombed and uninvolved paramilitaries in Iraq. Iraqis killed. By striking Syria instead, Biden would alleviate concerns about violations of Iraqi sovereignty and avoid political controversy that could harm a friendly government in Baghdad.
These paramilitary factions are part of Iraq’s official aid ‘Popular Mobilization Troops’. In Syria, however, they work outside Iraqi civil service as part of the Iran-led ‘Resistance Axis’.
These paramilitarists still dispute American officials’ understanding of geography. In a statement lamenting the fighter killed during Thursday’s airstrikes, Kataib Hizbullah said he was killed in “the Iraqi region of al-Qaim specifically”, indicating that he was on the Iraqi side of the border died. Kataib Hizbullah described the man both as ‘his martyr’ but also a member of the Popular Mobilization’s 46de Brigade, which ‘guarded the Iraq-Syrian border and protected the country and the people of Iraq from the criminal groups of ISIS’ and ‘joined the caravan of martyrs for the country’s sovereignty and dignity’.
Wherever the US has bombed, the Iraqi government can still experience political setbacks. How much the government of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi knew before the airstrikes on Thursday is unclear. U.S. officials have previously said they support the Iraqi authorities’ investigation into rocket attacks, but will also act in cooperation with Iraqi partners at a time and place of their choice. Biden spoke to Kadhemi by telephone on Tuesday; a White House reading said the two ‘agreed that those responsible for [recent rocket] attacks must be held fully accountable. ”
Iraqi paramilitary officials and their political allies in particular seized on remarks by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. In the wake of the strikes, Austin said, “We have allowed and encouraged the Iraqis to investigate and develop intelligence for us, and it has been very helpful for us to refine the target.” U.S. officials have since tried to back it down and denies using Iraqi information in Thursday’s airstrikes. But Austin’s comments could still endanger Kadhemi. Iran-linked factions have previously claimed that Kadhemi was involved in the assassination of Soleimani and Muhandis in his former capacity as Iraqi intelligence chief.
Although this week’s US airstrikes do not cause a repeat of last year’s escalation, they are in danger of continuing a cycle of violence that raises questions about the continued value of the US presence in Iraq. US and coalition partners continue to play an important role in enabling Iraqi forces to pursue ISIS militants, who are waging ongoing guerrilla warfare in Iraq’s rural periphery. Coalition forces are still in the country at the invitation of the Iraqi government; without their technical contributions, the ISIS uprising probably seems more dangerous.
However, if the US forces become more occupied, in balance with their defense than with their anti-ISIS mission, it will ultimately be a net negative for Iraqi security. With each new spasm of violence, Iraqi lives are being jeopardized.
This is not a dilemma of the creation of the Biden administration. It was Trump’s aggressive policy of ‘maximum pressure’ that apparently started this cycle of violence. But now that the cycle is underway, it is far from clear that even the most deliberate, finely tuned U.S. policy can usefully stop it.
The Biden government said on Thursday it had carried out a deliberate strike aimed at weakening the overall situation in eastern Syria and Iraq. “But now that the US has acted, the initiative belongs to the paramilitary factions of Iraq. It is they who will choose when and how to respond to it, and whether the more calibrated approach of the Biden administration benefits anything.