Brian M Downing
The US embassy in Baghdad was attacked and besieged by crowds angered by recent US airstrikes on Iran-backed militias. Those strikes came just after one such militia rocketed a base containing US personnel, killing an American contractor. The siege appears to be lifting but the Saudi-Iranian conflict, to which the US is unwisely a party, will continue.
The conflict has been underway for several years. There have been airstrikes on Iranian positions in Syria, violent demonstrations against Iran in Iraq, drone strikes on Saudi oil facilities, and attacks on tankers in the Gulf. Iraq is becoming more unstable and all sides should beware.
Duration and escalation
The embassy attack and siege is being conducted by a Shia militias closely tied to the IRGC. They took part in the ISIL war and, like many militias, sought to exert administrative control over recaptured towns. Iran and its militias may have sought to replicate the embarrassing embassy situation in Tehran forty years ago. However, the US president and public then were far less disposed to hard retaliation than now. Indeed, the White House has stated that Iran will pay a “a very big price” for the attack and sent more military assets to Baghdad and the Gulf region.
By chance or not, Russia and China have ordered warships to waters just outside the Strait of Hormuz where they will maneuver with IRGC ships. This will signal Washington that Iran has backing on this one. The signals will be all the stronger if the ships enter the Gulf.
Proxy militias
Recent demonstrations in Iraq, many quite violent, have called for an end to Iranian meddling in Iraqi government. Paradoxically, Shia leaders and crowds have been in the forefront. The protests began not long after Shia leader Moqtada al Sadr parleyed with Mohammad bin Salman in Riyadh. Details of their arrangement aren’t known but one was undoubtedly made. Iranian consulates have been torched.
Iran has backed militias inside Iraq since the costly war between the two states in the 1980s. Iran also built up political movements, some of which are now political parties. Accordingly, no one in Washington should be surprised that Iranian influence grew once US troops deposed the Sunni government of Saddam Hussein.
Tehran is pushing back against the attacks on its forces and allies in Syria and Iraq by striking tanker traffic and Saudi oil sites, and now directing militias to attack US positions in Iraq.
Iran emboldened
Leaders inTehran, perhaps especially the IRGC, are feeling their oats. They see the US has no reliable allies in the effort against Iran. In fact, Washington is alienating longstanding allies by presenting unsubstantiated claims about Iran’s nuclear program and endangering oil exports out of the Gulf. Ensuring the flow of oil has long been the US’s prime mission in the region.
In recent months President Trump has stepped back from attacking Iran, evidently after his generals dissuaded him. His intelligence agencies are unsupportive of his claims as well. From the perspective of Tehran he is preoccupied with impeachment proceedings. This is a serious miscalculation as congress is unlikely to block an attack and quick strikes may confer advantages going into the elections.
Russia and China back Iran as they see the US in decline and alienating allies in Europe and Asia. Helping Iran force the US to back down will in their view be a watershed in American decline and Russian-Chinese ascent. As noted, they have warships in the vicinity and could underscore their determination by visiting Iranian ports, deploying aircraft to Iranian airfields, and transferring ship-killing cruise missiles.
North Korea may return to the nuclear and missile tests that greatly raised tensions in the region two years ago. Russia and China are probably encouraging Kim Jong Un to raise tensions in order to demonstrate that American power is limited in East Asia as well. This will set the stage for Beijing and Moscow to step in, ease tensions, and show that they, not Washington, now guarantee peace in East Asia.
Iraqi stability
Iraq is in serious trouble. Political parties have been unable to form a government in several months and protests are spreading. The state is paralyzed and may collapse. It did not prevent the siege of the US embassy. It probably couldn’t.
As militias and crowds are mobilized and put into violent action, often at the direction of foreign powers, the state may become increasingly despised, powerless, and irrelevant. Militia leaders, foreign intelligence officers, and warlords-in-waiting may take more and more political roles. This has already happened in towns and villages that Shia militias took during the ISIL campaign. Moqtada al Sadr is using his religious prestige and armed might to increase control in the south.
The next step could be for these actors to seize oil wells and export terminals, power plants, factories, and mines. And the state may be pushed into irrelevance, at least to large parts of the country, as in Libya and Afghanistan and Mali and Somalia. As David Kilcullen observed, militias do not take power when the state collapses; they take power and then the state collapses.
© 2020 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.