U.S. airstrikes against Iran-linked paramilitaries in Syria this week were a deterrent to attacks on U.S. forces in neighboring Iraq. However, it appears that they have also been a conscious refutation by the Biden administration of the Trump administration’s savage and dangerous approach to both Iraq and Iran.
Trump’s recklessness almost ignited a regional war. The treatment of Thursday’s airstrike by Biden’s team seems highly intentional, but Trump left Biden in a dangerous enough situation in Iraq that even a more careful and deliberate approach might not be enough to fix it.
On Thursday evening, U.S. planes bombed Iraqi paramilitary factions on the Syrian-Iraqi border, in what the Pentagon said was a deterrent response and an effort to avoid “ongoing threats.” An Iraqi paramilitary group official told Reuters that U.S. strikes had killed one fighter and wounded four.
U.S. airstrikes followed a rocket attack on February 15 against a base used by U.S. forces and partners in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, that killed and wounded a civilian contractor. others. An injured Iraqi civilian was killed several days later. On February 22, three rockets headed to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, but left only material damage.
The Syrian government denounced the U.S. strikes “in the strongest terms.” One of the target Iraqi factions, Kataib Hizbullah, also condemned American “crime.”
U.S. forces are in Iraq as part of the U.S.-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 risked overshadowing the mission against ISIS.
Thursday’s airstrikes looked almost like a repeat of the U.S. airstrikes in December 2019. Then, the Trump administration responded to a deadly rocket attack by bombing Kataib’s Hezbollah facilities on the Syrian-Iraqi border. killing 25 fighters and injuring more than 50 people. Composed of the U.S. embassy, Trump retaliated – in an impressive escalation of 0 to 60 years – by killing Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and veteran Iraqi paramilitary and security officer Jamal Jafar (better known as name of war “Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis”) in a drone strike. For days, the Middle East seemed on the brink of a wider war between the United States and Iran. Tensions only broke after Iranian missile attacks on Iraqi bases harboring wounded U.S. forces, but did not kill U.S. personnel, which perversely paved the way for escalation.
The U.S. presence in Iraq has remained precarious since then. Violence in Iraq has increased periodically, U.S.-led coalition forces have evacuated most of its Iraqi bases, and the Trump administration has nearly shut down the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Iraqi paramilitaries continue to argue that coalition forces are a foreign “occupation.”
You could forgive the feeling of déjà vu, then, in Thursday’s airstrikes on some of the same Iraqi paramilitary factions, which hit the same stretch of the Iraqi-Syrian border, and worry about the escalation of the escalation. in a spiral that marked the beginning of 2020.
However, this latest action by the Biden administration also differs from Trump’s December 2019 airstrikes in some important respects.
“The Biden administration has seemed eager to reduce the temperature regionally, given the constant near-war atmosphere provoked by the Trump administration.”
First, the regional context is different. The backdrop to the December 2019 airstrikes was the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, a strategy whose stated goals were effectively equivalent to regime change. The rocket fire against U.S. forces in Iraq that precipitated those 2019 airstrikes was apparently part of an asymmetric response by Iranian regional partners to the crushing of U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. ; after all, Iran could hardly usefully respond by imposing its own sanctions on the US
The Biden administration, by contrast, has expressed its intention to return to the Iranian nuclear deal left by Trump, which promises a easing of economic pressure on Iran. More generally, the Biden administration has seemed eager to reduce the temperature regionally, given the constant near-war atmosphere provoked by the Trump administration.
Biden administration’s messages about Thursday’s airstrikes reflected this change in the regional context. The Trump administration, in announcing its 2019 airstrikes, punctually stressed the links of these Iraqi paramilitaries with Iran. The Pentagon statement closed with a dissuasive warning aimed primarily at Iran: “Iran and its KH representative forces must cease their attacks on US and coalition forces and respect the sovereignty of Iraq, to prevent further defensive action by US forces. ” Trump intensified his rhetoric even further in the last days of his presidency, threatening to retaliate directly against Iran for rockets in Iraq. “Some friendly health advice in Iran: if an American is killed, I will make Iran responsible. Think about it,” he tweeted in December 2020.
The Biden administration, on the other hand, called the Iraqi factions it bombed “Iran-backed militant groups”, but focused mainly on the two specific groups it claimed were responsible for the latest attacks. rockets. When a reporter asked Biden on Friday what kind of message the strikes sent to Iran, he said, “You can’t act with impunity. Be careful.” Still, officials have avoided turning the strikes into a Trump-style duel between the United States and Iran.
The rhetorical restraint of the Biden team may reflect its awareness of how to manage a greater engagement with Iran that is delicate and encompasses a number of issues, of which the restoration of the Iranian nuclear deal appears to be the priority. general. They may also be more sensitive to the legality of military action and the confidence in which they can attribute responsibility for the Erbil rocket attack.
Even if the Biden administration was inclined to blame Iran for the Erbil attack, the real extent of Iranian control over Iraqi armed factions is debated, especially after the assassination of Suleimani and Muhandis. . Without them, these factions linked to Iran would have become more fractured and inclined to unilateral action.
In addition to his rhetoric, the Biden administration deviated from Trump’s approach to other key issues. The reported toll from Thursday’s U.S. airstrikes – one fighter, not dozens – was apparently more proportional to the Erbil rocket fire. The Biden administration said the bombing was carried out “along with diplomatic measures,” including consultation with coalition partners whose staff are at risk of retaliation alongside Americans in Iraq. .
The emphasis on Biden administration officials who struck these factions within Syrian territory is another apparent contrast to the Trump administration, which provoked the condemnation of even friendly Iraqi officials in the United States last year. past when he unilaterally bombed paramilitaries in Iraq and killed uninvolved Iraqis. On strike in Syria, Biden could have mitigated concerns about the violation of Iraqi sovereignty and avoided political controversies that could jeopardize a friendly government in Baghdad.
These paramilitary factions are part of Iraq’s official auxiliary “People’s Mobilization Forces”. In Syria, however, they operate outside the auspices of the Iraqi state as part of the “Axis of Resistance” led by Iran.
Still, these paramilitaries discuss the understanding of geography by U.S. officials. In a statement of mourning for the fighter killed in Thursday’s airstrikes, Kataib Hizbullah said he was killed in “the Iraqi region of Al-Qaim specifically,” implying that he died on the Iraqi side of the border. Kataib Hizbullah described the man as “his martyr,” but also as a member of the Popular Mobilization.th Brigade, which was “guarding the Iraqi-Syrian border, protecting the land and people of Iraq from ISIS criminal gangs” and “joined the caravan of martyrs for the sovereignty and dignity of the nation “.
Wherever the United States is bombed, moreover, the Iraqi government could still suffer a political rebound. It is unclear how much the government of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi knew before Thursday’s airstrikes. U.S. officials had previously said they supported the Iraqi authorities’ investigation into rocket attacks, but would also act, in coordination with Iraqi partners, at a time and place of their choice. Biden spoke by phone with Kadhemi on Tuesday; a White House reading said the two had “agreed that those responsible for [recent rocket] attacks must be fully responsible. “
Iraqi paramilitaries and their political allies have seized, in particular, statements by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. After the strikes, Austin said, “We allowed and encouraged Iraqis to research and develop intelligence for us, and that was very helpful to us in fine-tuning the goal.” Since then, U.S. officials have tried to appeal it denied the use of Iraqi information in Thursday’s airstrikes. But Austin’s comments could still endanger Kadhemi. Factions linked to Iran had previously alleged that Kadhemi was complicit in the assassination of Soleimani and Muhandis in his former role as Iraqi intelligence chief.
Even if this week’s U.S. airstrikes don’t cause a repeat of last year’s escalation, they risk perpetuating a cycle of violence that raises questions about the continued value of the U.S. presence. in Iraq. U.S. and Coalition partners continue to play an important role in allowing Iraqi forces to pursue ISIS militants, who are waging ongoing guerrilla warfare on the rural outskirts of Iraq. Coalition forces continue in the country at the invitation of the Iraqi government; without their technical contributions, it seems likely that IS insurgency will become more dangerous.
However, if US forces are generally more concerned with self-defense than with their mission against ISIS, then they will be negative for Iraqi security. With each new spasm of violence, Iraqi life is put at risk.
This is not a dilemma of the creation of the Biden administration. It was Trump’s aggressive policy of “maximum pressure” that seems to have started this cycle of violence. But now that the cycle is underway, it’s not clear that even the most deliberate and fine-tuned American politics can usefully stop it.
The Biden administration said it carried out the strikes on Thursday “in a deliberate manner aimed at slowing the general situation in both eastern Syria and Iraq.” But now that the United States has acted, the initiative belongs to the paramilitary factions of Iraq. They are the ones who will choose when and how to respond, and whether the more calibrated approach of the Biden administration really works well.