If we want to significantly reduce Iranian attacks on U.S. interests in Iraq, we will need to respond directly to Iran. And responding directly also offers another advantage: it mitigates new damage to our interests in Iraq.
The New York Times reports that the Trump administration is preparing for an escalated campaign against an Iranian proxy group in Iraq, Kata’ib Hezbollah. That group is carrying out an escalating campaign of rocket attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq. These Iranian-directed attacks have killed one American and wounded others.
That threat demands a U.S. response. Iran must not be allowed to believe that it can use the current coronavirus chaos to attack America without consequence.
Still, the U.S. should be wary of responding in a way that further jeopardizes our relationship with Iraq.
Too much American blood has been spilled to give Iraq the prospect of a stable, multisectarian democracy. And while that prospect is under increasing pressure, it remains a realistic one. While suborned by Saddam Hussein, Iranian-sponsored Shiite sectarianism, and ISIS-propagated Sunni sectarianism, Iraq has an enduring nationalist political tradition. As reflected by the protest movement against government cronyism and sectarianism, a great many Iraqis want good government as their first political priority.
Yet where the U.S. acts precipitously in Iraq, we jeopardize the reformers. Where America is seen to be trampling on Iraqi sovereignty, we foster a political realignment in favor of Iran. Just consider the recent fulminations of Iraq’s present political kingmaker, Muqtada al Sadr. Where Sadr was quite recently supporting the reform movement, even deploying his own supporters to protect protesters from Iranian proxies, Sadr has now returned to the Iranian fold, because continued hostilities between U.S. forces and Iranian proxy groups in Iraq have made opposing U.S. action a higher nationalist priority for Sadr than political reform.
Even so, Iran cannot be allowed to believe, as it currently does, that it can escalate against our interests without facing U.S. retaliation. That takes us back to the utility of targeting Iran directly in response to its attacks on our personnel. The key here is that the U.S., Iraq, and Iran all know full well that Kata’ib Hezbollah’s attacks on U.S. forces are de facto Iranian attacks. Were the U.S. to warn Iran that new attacks on our forces in Iraq would result in direct retaliation against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces inside Iran, we would establish an overt redline against the source of this violence.
Next time Iran tries to test us, the U.S. could respond by striking an IRGC base on Iran’s own turf. In the context of Iran’s coronavirus catastrophe, and as with the Qassem Soleimani killing, U.S. action would likely lead Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to restrain the Guard further. To do otherwise would be to risk an escalatory struggle that threatens his regime’s very existence.
