Iran likely responded to President Biden’s strikes in Syria by again targeting American troops in Iraq, raising questions about whether targeting proxy groups, rather than Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, will tip the balance of power in the region decisively toward Washington.
Ten rockets fell at the Al Asad Airbase hosting most of the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops fighting ISIS in Iraq on Wednesday. While no service members were hurt as a result of the shelling, one contractor suffered cardiac arrest while sheltering and later died. The attack, the fourth in as many weeks, may demonstrate that Iran’s support for the militias has not wavered following a Feb. 25 U.S. retaliatory strike on militia targets in neighboring Syria.
“It’s a deja vu all over again,” Heritage Foundation Middle East analyst Jim Phillips told the Washington Examiner. “This is almost certainly the work of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias who act as Iran’s proxies in trying to drive U.S. and Western forces out of Iraq.”
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Phillips said if Biden is to curtail Iran’s bad behavior, tit-for-tat “proportionate” strikes against proxies will not do. Biden must hit Iran’s Revolutionary Guard directly, even as hopes to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal hang in the balance.
“That would send the signal that Iran cannot act with impunity in Iraq without jeopardizing its own assets,” he said.
“That will put a premium on responding outside Iraq,” Phillips added. “Inevitably, it will boil down to whether the U.S. is willing to force the IRGC to pay a much heavier price and not just focusing its attacks on Iranian proxies.”
Phillips explained that the Iranian regime is split between hard-liners, backed by the Revolutionary Guard, who oppose any negotiations with the United States, and soft liners backing Prime Minister Hassan Rouhani, who negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal that lifted U.S. sanctions on Iran — until Trump pulled out three years later.
Crippling sanctions reimposed by the Trump administration have led many observers to believe that Tehran would rein in proxy attacks so as not to disrupt the Biden goal of rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Biden’s initial offer to negotiate with Iran was rebuked, with Iran saying it won’t hold talks until sanctions are lifted.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said on Wednesday that relations between Washington and Tehran are at an all-time low, and he blamed the Trump administration for increasing tensions.
“Bilateral relations between Iran and the United States remain tense,” he said. “The ‘maximum pressure campaign’ that was put on by the previous administration only emboldened Iran further to pull back its commitments under the JCPOA and certainly has done nothing to limit, constrain, or curtail their other malign activities.”
While declining to attribute blame pending an investigation by Iraqi authorities, Kirby said that some of the militias “have Iranian backing.” He would not say if the U.S. plans to retaliate to the latest attack.
A Biden administration decision not to respond in a forceful and more direct way against Iran would only invite further attacks and repeat an Obama-era mistake, Phillips said.
“They are focused on the nuclear negotiations and see this as a distraction,” he said.
“That was one of the major weaknesses of the Obama administration strategy, vis-a-vis Iran, was putting the nuclear issue in a box and not pushing back against Iran,” he said.
Phillips went so far as to say the U.S. should strike Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps assets in Iran.
“The U.S. might be forced to strike at Revolutionary Guards targets, possibly in Iraq, possibly in Syria, and the way things are going, ultimately may be forced to strike IRGC assets inside Iran,” he said.
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Kirby declined Wednesday to respond directly to a Washington Examiner question as to whether Revolutionary Guard targets are off-limits for possible retaliation.
“Let’s let the investigation conclude,” he said. “I cannot speak to attribution at this time. I’m certainly not going to presuppose anything specific in the future with respect to operations or to speculate about what a response might or might not look like.”
