National Review
The dissuasive message that Iran needs to hear
On February 15, Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia groups in Iraq fired a flurry of missiles – at least 14 – at an American base in Erbil, Iraq. One contractor was killed and five were injured; an American soldier was injured. That no American was killed was a matter of luck, it seems. The US reaction so far has been only verbal. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement, saying “We are outraged by today’s rocket attack in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. . . . I spoke with the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Masrour Barzani, to discuss the incident and pledge our support for all efforts to investigate and hold those responsible responsible. ”“ Those responsible ”are sitting in Tehran, and this is a fundamental test for the Biden government: if the United States reacts only with words, the Biden government will show Iranians that such attacks are free. The only lesson that Iran’s leaders will learn from this response is that the Biden government’s desire to return to nuclear diplomacy will allow Iran to put American lives at risk whenever it wishes. If the US reaction is to attack the Iraqi Shiite group that claimed the attack, it will once again play the game of Tehran. Iran is pleased to allow these representatives to absorb American attacks while acting with impunity. A Shi’ite Iraqi group calling itself Saraya Awliya al-Dam, which means “Guardians of the Blood Brigade”, said it led the attack. The fact that the Iranian-backed militia actually carried out the attack is largely irrelevant because Iran controls them all. The proof can be found in the way these militia attacks appear to have been canceled by Iran in October. At that time, Iran seemed to fear that if an American were killed and then President Trump reacted strongly against Iran, Trump could gain popularity and be re-elected. The attacks by Shiite groups supported by Iran in the pre-election period have not subsided because they ran out of ammunition or decided to take a vacation; there is no other explanation, except the decisions made in Tehran. In November, December and January (especially around January 3, the one-year anniversary of the assassination of the Quds force chief by the United States, Qasem Soleimani), the US government expected the attacks to resume. What followed was a successful effort to stop Iran, especially after the only Iran-supported attack in this period: the December rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy. While American forces and diplomats in Iraq took great precautions to avoid injury in the event of an attack, the United States transmitted clear messages to Iran, both verbally and through the deployment of military force. The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz remained stationed in the region after returning home, and there were regular B-52 flights over the Persian Gulf. It is in this context that Trump tweeted on December 23, two days after an attack on the United States Embassy in Baghdad, “An Iran-friendly health council: If an American is killed, I will hold Iran accountable. Think about it. ”The messages were clear: if an Iranian representative killed an American, the US reaction would not target the representative, but would target Iran. What exactly that meant was kept ambiguous; Iran had to calculate the risks. And the Iranian regime did. From election to inauguration, there was an attack, and after that December attack on the United States embassy in Baghdad, Iranian representatives gave up. And, to repeat, there is only one logical explanation for this: Tehran got the message and instructed them to give up. This background explains why the attack on the Americans in Erbil is so important. Iran understood the messages from the United States before January 20, but what is the message now? Will we “hold those responsible accountable”, as Blinken said, or will we instead allow Iran to hide behind prosecutors it controls? If we do the latter, the message to Iran is that such attacks are acceptable – and we can expect more from them. These are efforts to kill Americans and to kill or injure members of the American armed forces and contract to expel the United States from Iraq. The Biden government should instead adopt a policy of deterrence, warning Iran that it will be held directly responsible. This message, plus a clear willingness to carry out if necessary, worked. It did not reduce the attacks to zero, but significantly reduced their size and frequency – because those must have been Tehran’s orders. These orders can be sent to the Iraqi Shiite militias once again. It all depends on what Tehran hears from Washington. If an American is killed by an Iranian-backed militia and the United States responds, does that mean an end to diplomacy or a broader war? Not that. The United States has a plethora of military options, some of which would clearly signal to Iran that we have no desire to escalate into a bigger conflict – but that we insist that the Iranian regime stop trying to kill Americans – or else. That is the message the Biden government is expected to send this week.