Haaretz reports that Israeli has just opened a new military front in its fight against Iran. It’s well known that Israel has attacked Iranian positions inside Syria hundreds of times, along with assassinating Iranian commanders there as well. But until now, there has been no other country in the region where Israel confronted Iranian forces directly.
In the past few days, the Israeli air force has launched attacks on what it claims are missile positions inside Iraq which were established by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The missiles emplanted there can supposedly reach Israel. Drones, possibly Israeli, also attacked IRG positions inside Iraq:
…The reported F-35Is missions targeting two Iranian bases…represent a sharp escalation of Israeli attacks on Iranian forces operating in the region, and mark the first Israeli strikes in Iraq since the bold 1981 bombing that destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nascent nuclear program.
It appears that the IRG is spreading its military assets over as wide an area as possible. So that in the event of attack by Israel and/or the U.S. it will be able to strike back. The wider it spreads this net the less likely its enemies will be able to hit every position in a first strike, and the more likelihood Iran would be able to launch a punishing response.
Haaretz dutifully offers the military intelligence analysis of the Iranian strategic thinking (though I find many of its assumptions questionable):
Israel’s intelligence assessment for 2019 states that despite Iran’s difficulties in entrenching itself militarily in Syria, it hasn’t given up on its ambition “to create regional hegemony for itself via alliances spreading from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon.” Nevertheless, the assessment continued: “Iran has been forced to recalculate the way it tries to realize its regional vision. This recalculation led Iran to realize that the domestic and international situation in Iraq created better opportunities for it to prepare its regional plans.”
Iran has had little difficult entrenching itself in Syria. Israeli analysts are forgetting who won that war and who lost. Israel was on the losing side. It may be continually trying to punish Hezbollah and Iran by attacking their bases there. But that doesn’t mean Iran is frustrated in its military ambitions there as this analysis presumes. Notice only Iran seeks “regional hegemony.” Not Israel. Notice that it is only Iran seeing “alliances spreading from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon.” No mention of Israeli alliances spreading from Saudi Arabia through the Gulf and to Egypt. Do you catch of whiff of hypocrisy in the air?
Israel’s strategic thinking seems highly escalatory. We already have one powder keg where Israeli and Iranian forces are poised for battle: Syria. Now, thanks to Israel’s incessant need to strike out against any regional power that poses a threat to its dominance, we may have second front on the edge of a conflagration. Syria is a dangerous enough place with the combined forces of Syria, Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, Turkey, the U.S., and Kurds all vying for military position and influence. The country is on a knife’s edge.
But Syria is kid’s play compared to Iraq. The U.S. has been fighting there for nearly two decades. We’ve lost well over 5,000 troops in battle. It is where ISIS first arose to nearly dominate the entire region. The sectarian divide there between Sunni and Shia is exquisitely fraught. During those two decades, the U.S. and Iran have variously been at each other’s throat and quietly cooperated on matters of mutual interest.
Now Israel wants to begin throwing its own weight around there. Imagine how Iraqi Shia, allied with Iran are going to take the prospect of Israeli F-35s buzzing their air space routinely to take out Iranian bases and weapons depots, as they do in Syria? Does anyone think that the Iraqis will stand by and see their sovereignty trampled on as Israel does routinely in Syria? Further, the Haaretz account notes that Israeli military strategists are also suggesting that Israel may target not only Iranian forces and weaponry in Iraq, but that it may target Iran’s Iraqi Shiite militia allies. That threatens to unleash a tinder box explosion like the one that U.S. forces faced a decade ago there.
Remember, the U.S. currently has 5,200 troops in Iraq. Remember the days when Shia and Sunni terrorists planted roadside IEDs which claimed hundreds and thousands of American lives? If Iran wanted, we could easily end up in those bad old days. I have no doubt that Trump, Pompeo and Bolton would be only too happy for Israel to give Iran a bloody nose in Iraq. But can the U.S. afford the blowback it would entail?
While Israel is prepared to incite a potential regional conflict over Iran basing missile batteries in Iraq, let’s recall that the U.S. has missile batteries throughout Europe and tens of thousands of its troops stationed not just in the Middle East, but throughout the world, including Germany, South Korea and Africa. While we view this as defending our interests, many of our rivals for influence see it as a direct threat to them. Yet when Iran does precisely the same thing, it is Iran which is the world’s bully. What hypocrisy!
Whenever you write about Iran it is hard to determine whether you think they are the good guys in this story who are bothered by haters or is Iran a bully that everyone should be scared of.
You move between the two consistantly.
@Judy Green: Clearly you don’t have a clue what my views are about Iran. Your account above shows that. Thankfully, most of my readers here and at MEE do.
I don’t think Iran is doing anything different than Israel would do in the same circumstances. I’m a pragmatic realist. There are no good guys here. Israel least of all.
You readers understand you? You say that based on what? You collected statistics?
You defiantly cannot say that based on their comments since there are almost none.
@Judy Green: please don’t be dense. Or disingenuous.
I have 100,000 comments on this blog. And you say I gave “none?” Are you daft? I have 1000 subscribers and 500,000 visitors every year. If they didn’t understand what I wrote they wouldn’t be here.
Pragmatic?
How come when Iran is on the offense, building army bases and recruiting proxies all over the Middle East, it is pragmatic, but when Israel is on the defense, trying to slow Iran down, it is evil?
And please, Israel involvement in Syria in minimal (and pragmatic). What do you have to show? A few thousands patients, many are civilians, or a few unidentified boxes? We are taking caravans of trucks. Comparing that to Iran’s bases and thousands of fighters is a joke.
100,000 comments?? Let’s break them down –
30% are your own answers you people, usually those you disagreed with.
40% are people who disagreed with you and made counter arguments, 10% out of those you censored or deleted because you did like the content.
30% are from a dozen of elite groupies who cheer for whatever you write or just use you as a platform for their own ideas (Qui?).
@ Judy Green: Your take on my comment threads quite contradicts the usual hasbarist attack. for that I give you some credit. They almost universally decry my “censorship” of their speech and argue that no one here disagrees with me because I’m a cruel unfair censor.
But you considerately rebut them by acknowleding that “40%” of commenters disagree with me. Then you claim 10% of commenters have been “censored or deleted.” Those aren’t the correct terms which are ‘moderated’ or ‘banned.’ But that would mean that 10,000 comments have ended in moderation or banning. Which is ridiculous. Though I haven’t researched the figures, I’m guessing I’ve moderated or banned perhaps 500 people. But more likely 300-400. You also have to take into account that many commenters who are banned create new identities, comment once again, and are banned again. I know this because one of them bragged about it publicly here.
That would mean that over the course of 16 years, I’ve banned perhaps 350-400 people. Less than 30 per year. Or less than 2% of the total number of individual commenters (estimating that number at about 25,000, though this again is a guestimate and could be higher).
Would you care to compare that to the number of Israeli news articles which are censored or have judicial gag orders imposed on them?
As for my own comments, they are about 20% of all comments here. Not 30% of you claimed.
All of this bores me to tears. You are now moderated. That means if you want to publish snark or half-truths or make shit up as you have here, you won’t be published.
Iran is a proud nation
Israel is playing with fire
If Iran only says We all are marters and Hezbollah and more muslims not only shia but also others go join the party and they begin to figth on land with 6 million troops at the end they can reach Tel Aviv with 1 million troops and WHAT THEN ???
I THINK THEREFORE PEACE AGREEMENT IS THE BEST FOR ALL PARTIES AND ISRAEL MUST UNDERSTAND THIS.
@Mehrour: Really? You’re starting to sound like Al Ahram in the days leading up the 1967 War. This isn’t a holy war and millions of Muslims aren’t going to start marching on Tel Aviv, regardless of what you claim. So give it a rest.
Israel hasn’t opened up a new front, she’s taken the Israel-Iran Cold War to Iran’s border with Iraq, same as Iran took the Israel-Iran Cold War to Israel’s border with Syria.
Tit for tat.
Israel’s overflight and bombing of IRGC camps in Iraq must have been done with United States blessing.
An allowance that is probable ‘pay back’ for Iran’s downing of a United States drone over international waters.
Question: Where is the Iraqi government’s response to Israel’s violating her sovereignty?
Do you suppose that maybe Iraq’s fragile government is getting a little tired of Iran’s presence in Iraq and is allowing for a little ‘push back’?
@ Crimson Kimono: Welcome to the latest Hasbara arrival from Ben Gurion. Read the comment rules fella. I have a feeling you’re gonna need ’em. And follow ’em.
Do you suppose Bashar al Assad’s “fragile government” in the midst of its worst onslaught from ISIS got “a little tired or Iran’s presence and “allowed for a little [Israeli] pushback?” Your claim is preposterous on its face and you know it. You’re peddling a sack of shit.
Iraq is majority Shia. Iran has had a major influence in Iraq, especially among the majority Shia for decades, if not centuries. Do I think a majority Shia government has problems with an Iranian presence on its territory? Do I think Israel has a problem with U.S. weapons and military presence in Israel? Nah, I don’t. And the more Israel intervenes in Iraq the more it will bring Iran and Iraq together in a fight against a mutual menace.
But this has a positive outcomes as far as Bibi is concerned. He’s created a new Arab enemy he can frighten the Israeli electorate with; thus sending them into his arms to protect him from the Arab bogeyman. The strategy has worked beautifully for him so far.
The war criminal, Bashar Assad, was in a death match with the Syrian people, before ISIS even metastasized.
The weakened Assad is now a shamed and pathetic an Iranian vassal.
BTW, most of the casualties fighting ISIS in Iraq have been Kurdish, not IRGC. American and coalition air campaign drove back ISIS in Syria, not an Iranian air campaign.
And there’s no love lost between Iraq and Israel.
Iraq has been trying to destroy Israel since the 40’s. She sent her armies to destroy Israel in 1948 and 1967 and Saddam Hussein’s fired his missiles into the heart of Tel Aviv in 1991 during the Gulf War.
Iran’s goal is to ‘divide and conquer’ the Arab world and to rebuild it in the image of the Fatimid Caliphate. She is using Arab proxies to accomplish this, and she is using far away Israel as a rallying point.
In the Orwellian Iranian playbook, Israel is “Emanuel Goldstein”, a fake enemy and fake threat that Big Brother Khamenei uses to stir the masses, recruit devotees, and justify Iranian expansionism.
Iran will fight Israel ‘to the last Arab’!