Joe Biden is squarely in the middle of a major foreign policy test as president, and although largely unnoticed in the US, the Middle East is watching closely to see how it responds to an attack on US forces.
As many as 24 rockets were fired at a U.S. military base at Erbil International Airport in the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq on Monday night. The attacks, almost certainly launched by a militia backed by Iran, wounded a U.S. soldier, killed one non-US contractor and wounded five others. Three local civilians were also injured.
Earlier this year, I argued that a new President Biden might face just as much of a challenge in early government. Iran wanted revenge for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani in early January 2020, but I suggested that rather than elicit a retiring Donald Trump, he would rather try his replacement by waiting until after the Inauguration day. That’s exactly what happened and now the question is how Biden will react.
The early answer is: careful. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the United States “reserves the right to respond to a time and manner of our choice, but we will wait until the award is finalized.”
It is certainly important to be guilty, but it does not last long. In fact, intelligence experts already have a very good idea where the blame lies. The most important issue is to clearly communicate to Iran what the consequences will be to encourage further attacks.
It is a miracle that many more people were not killed. Two of the two dozen rockets hit the camp of the American coalition. If more were to hit the U.S. base, the result would likely be multiple U.S. deaths, such as on March 11, 2020, when two U.S. staff members and also one British maid were killed in Iraq.
Most of the rockets fired on February 15 missed the airport and hit the densely populated city, full of Kurds, Arab displaced people, Western diplomats and foreign workers. Civilian homes and apartment complexes were hit. If even one rocket hit a tall house, in a city with limited firefighting capability, the death toll could be catastrophic.
At the end of 2019, the same liquidation of militia attacks led to the end of the year-long attacks in Iraq in which a US contact person was killed, the US embassy was besieged, thousands of US troops were flown to Iraq. . America kills more than thirty Iranian – backed militants and Iran’s senior general and spy, Qassem Soleimani. Iran has fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. base, injuring more than a hundred U.S. troops.
The episode warns that the attack on Erbil will not be the end of the military provocations against the Biden government, but rather the beginning, unless opposed to it. This dynamic must be quickly reversed before Americans are killed and maimed, before the US takes revenge, or before American credibility takes a new hit in the eyes of our allies and partners in the region.
As Psaki noted on Tuesday, the premise should be to ensure the correct allocation of blame and this offers a welcome excuse for the Biden team to slow down the process, breathe and explore options. As someone who has been at the core of dozens of similar intelligence exercises, I know it’s not hard to say who carried out the attack. Many factors indicate with great confidence that it is Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), a US-designed terrorist group with liters of American blood on its hands from the years before the US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011.
Let’s examine the circumstantial evidence that is even available to a trained observer who only has access to media, social media, and some insiders. AAH media frontman named Ashab al-Kahf (Companions of the Cave) spent much of February 15 criticizing the Kurdistan region, and then (13 minutes before the rocket attack) a cryptic Telegram message issued threatening Kurdistan and Erbil. In the hours after the attack, AAH’s Telegram channel, Sabareen, dominated coverage of the incident, while other groups gained slower access to information than the AAH channel.
When a claim emerges and is not disputed by other militia groups, it comes from Saraya Alwiya al-Dam (Guardians of the Blood), which is another media brand that AAH sometimes uses to claim attacks. To add to this picture, AAH has identified similar evidence as the militia that flared up the US embassy in Baghdad on November 20 and December 25 and undertook the last attack on US targets in Erbil on September 30.
For those within the system, with top-secret access to eavesdropping intelligence, the trail of breadcrumbs leading to AAH will quickly become even clearer. Whether they prefer to let the outside world know of this evidence is another matter.
Such evidence would also give an idea of whether Iran had carried out the attack, or was unaware of it, or simply did not care. In the case of AAH, the group has the habit of attacking Americans in order to increase its own prestige, without requiring an explicit voice from Tehran. But even though the attack on Erbil was not intended by Tehran as a trial of Biden’s credibility, it immediately became the test.
Based on my close focus on AAH and other Iraqi militias, I rather doubt that Iran was the driving force behind the Erbil attack, but I know for sure that Iran could warns the group away from future transgressions of this nature, if Tehran is properly motivated.
The Biden team is looking for a diplomatic first step, as opposed to the immediate use of military strikes or new sanctions. A smart move would be to warn Tehran directly that the US expects Iran to deter all its proxies from destabilizing steps such as the Erbil attack or the 23-year-old drone attack on the Saudi capital Riyadh, which is also from Iraq has been launched. Such a message would let the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) know that America is not being deceived by facades, but rather remains clear about Tehran’s influence on anti-American militias.
In particular, the Biden team must publicly warn Iran that if another American is killed or wounded in Iraq or elsewhere in the Gulf, then the Biden government will suspend efforts to resume nuclear talks. Only a firm and clear line will protect American soldiers who are on the front lines of the war against the Islamic State or those who protect American interests in the Middle East. An evaluation period could be instituted during which Iran would have time to quietly reduce the activities of its civilian partners in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
It may seem contradictory to address the threat of the civilian power before the more consequent attempt to stop Iran from getting a bomb, but how can a US president sit down and negotiate with an Iranian government that is tacitly or actively encouraging attempts to kill Americans?
Better, surely, to condition new talks with Iran privately on a visible standstill of Iran-backed militants in the Middle East – a non-lethal, diplomatic first step in protecting Americans and American partners across the region.
If Iran does not restrain its proxies, the Biden government should not shy away from a credible and moderate protest. Very clearly, as shown by the Erbil strike, the militants supported by Iran do not fear or respect the Biden government in the same way as they did the Trump administration. This is a dangerous state of affairs that could lead to miscalculation and the death of Americans.
To restore deterrence, the US should consider options to shake the confidence of the AAH leadership, such as an ‘almost-miss’ drone or a secret strike at a place near its chief, Qais al-Khazali, or a clear penetration of his personal communications and computer security. If the Biden team wants to differentiate their approach from the previous administration, such ‘out of the box’ thinking is more necessary than ever before.