IMO, Iran’s latest actions is a sign of weakness, not strength. They are lacking in the ability to conduct precision strikes. Iran’s weak local currency contributed to high levels of inflation — which the World Bank said peaked at 52% in May 2019. That raises the costs of living in Iran at a time when job opportunities are lacking. One main implication of a stagnant or declining economy is rising unemployment rate, which has been seen in Iran. The Iranian government has limited finances to roll out measures in order to lift the country's economy. That has been exacerbated by overall subdued economy activity and restrictions on oil sale overseas, due to the sanctions in place. Such fiscal constraints would limit Iran's ability to fund a war.
After Iran’s missile launches, there was confusion about whether the American President Trump would address the nation, but he ultimately decided to take to Twitter. “All is well!” Trump tweeted. “Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning.”
Iraq now finds itself in a difficult position between Iran and the US.
Edit: Apologies for the prior factual error on Iraqis being killed in this post (that has since been edited). Iraq sources have also confirmed that none of their troops were killed in the 16 missile Iranian attack launched on the Ain al-Asad air base in the western Anbar province and a base in the Iraqi Kurdish capital Erbil.
- Iraq received "an official verbal message" from Iran about the missile attack shortly before midnight on Wednesday, according to a statement from Iraq's Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi. He said Iraq was told that the strike would be "limited to the whereabouts of the US military in Iraq, without giving the exact location."
- US Army General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that, in his personal opinion, Iran was aiming to kill American personnel and destroy US equipment with its missiles strikes on Al Asad and Erbil. This contradicts earlier reports that US officials believed that the Iranian regime had deliberately chosen targets to try to avoid causing casualties, as some Trump administration officials suggested.
- US Defense Secretary Mark Esper also denied reports that the US was warned of the attack by Iraq, which itself was warned by Iran. He said that instead, the US warned Iraq of the attack, after its intelligence systems detected preparations for Iran's launch. IMO, Iran did not intentionally miss areas populated by Americans when they targeted two Iraqi bases housing US troops but simply failed to hit anything meaningful due to US capability to detect Iranian preparations for launch.
It seems as if the Iranians are lacking in intelligence on current American troop locations in Iraq — Iran’s missile attacks have failed to gain a propaganda windfall from the missile attacks by failing to kill Americans and we await President Trump’s response in the days ahead. As this drags on, more Iraqi citizens will be killed by the Iranians — making the Iraqi citizens realise how little Tehran cares. For some context to the Iranian missile strikes in Iraq that only killed Iraqi citizens, below is an extract of an interview with David Petraeus:
Foreign Policy (FP): What impact will the killing of Gen. Suleimani have on regional tensions?
David Petraeus (DP): It is impossible to overstate the importance of this particular action. It is more significant than the killing of Osama bin Laden or even the death of [Islamic State leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi. Suleimani was the architect and operational commander of the Iranian effort to solidify control of the so-called Shia crescent, stretching from Iran to Iraq through Syria into southern Lebanon. He is responsible for providing explosives, projectiles, and arms and other munitions that killed well over 600 American soldiers and many more of our coalition and Iraqi partners just in Iraq, as well as in many other countries such as Syria. So his death is of enormous significance.
The question of course is how does Iran respond in terms of direct action by its military and Revolutionary Guard Corps forces? And how does it direct its proxies—the Iranian-supported Shia militia in Iraq and Syria and southern Lebanon, and throughout the world?
FP: Two previous administrations have reportedly considered this course of action and dismissed it. Why did Trump act now?
DP: The reasoning seems to be to show in the most significant way possible that the U.S. is just not going to allow the continued violence—the rocketing of our bases, the killing of an American contractor, the attacks on shipping, on unarmed drones—without a very significant response.
Many people had rightly questioned whether American deterrence had eroded somewhat because of the relatively insignificant responses to the earlier actions. This clearly was of vastly greater importance. Of course it also, per the Defense Department statement, was a defensive action given the reported planning and contingencies that Suleimani was going to Iraq to discuss and presumably approve.
This was in response to the killing of an American contractor, the wounding of American forces, and just a sense of how this could go downhill from here if the Iranians don’t realize that this cannot continue.
FP: Do you think this response was proportionate?
DP: It was a defensive response and this is, again, of enormous consequence and significance. But now the question is: How does Iran respond with its own forces and its proxies, and then what does that lead the U.S. to do?
Iran is in a very precarious economic situation, it is very fragile domestically—they’ve killed many, many hundreds if not thousands of Iranian citizens who were demonstrating on the streets of Iran in response to the dismal economic situation and the mismanagement and corruption. I just don’t see the Iranians as anywhere near as supportive of the regime at this point as they were decades ago during the Iran-Iraq War. Clearly the supreme leader has to consider that as Iran considers the potential responses to what the U.S. has done.
It will be interesting now to see if there is a U.S. diplomatic initiative to reach out to Iran and to say, “Okay, the next move could be strikes against your oil infrastructure and your forces in your country—where does that end?”
FP: Will Iran consider this an act of war?
DP: I don’t know what that means, to be truthful. They clearly recognize how very significant it was. But as to the definition—is a cyberattack an act of war? No one can ever answer that. We haven’t declared war, but we have taken a very, very significant action.
