US President Donald Trump and his top aides spent the weekend arguing that the killing of Iranian major general Qassem Soleimani would deter future attacks and make the Middle East safer.
Instead, US policy in the region seems to be going in the opposite direction of what Trump has long promised — with more US troops going in, not fewer; an Iran defiant, not cowed and broken by sanctions; and regional allies giving only lukewarm support to Trump’s airstrike instead of rallying around it.
Economic costs of the strike are also mounting: Oil on Monday surged to more than US$70 per barrel and equities worldwide extended losses. Havens climbed, with gold rising to the highest in more than six years.
The political backlash came quickly, as a US-led coalition against the Islamic State group was forced to suspend operations and the Iraqi Council of Representatives on Sunday called for US troops to withdraw.
Trump responded by saying that Iraq could face sanctions and would have to “reimburse” the US.
Iran said that it would abandon limits on uranium enrichment put in place as part of a 2015 nuclear agreement that Trump abandoned in 2018.
US actions have “made an already volatile situation much more dangerous,” said retired US Army lieutenant colonel Daniel Davis, a senior fellow at the Defense Priorities think tank who favors a US troop withdrawal from Iraq.
“If you paid any attention to Iran in the last 40 years you know they will never buckle to that kind of pressure. It’s just the opposite,” he said.
TURNING POINT
The strike on Soleimani appeared to unite Iranians after months of protests against their own government, with hundreds of thousands turning out to mourn a military chief who had made their nation — battered by US economic sanctions — appear strong by giving Tehran leverage in conflicts from Syria to Yemen.
Iran has vowed revenge and allies, including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, said that they would now seek to drive out the more than 50,000 US troops from the region.
“It united most political forces in Iraq against the US,” said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. “The Trump administration monstrously miscalculated by playing into Iran’s hands.”
The fight against the Islamic State was immediately hampered, with the US-led coalition saying that it would suspend operations in Iraq to focus on protecting bases that have come under attack.
Threats from Iran-backed militias have previously forced staff drawdowns in US diplomatic missions across Iraq, which serves as the home base for operations against the Islamic State.
Trump late on Sunday told reporters aboard Air Force One that the US would not leave unless it got paid back for the “billions” spent on an air base there.
“If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever,” Trump said. “It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”
The escalating tensions hit markets starting on Friday last week and continuing through Monday.
Oil futures on Monday jumped an additional 3 percent after the US Department of State warned of a “heightened risk” of missile attacks near military and energy facilities in Saudi Arabia.
Japanese, Hong Kong and South Korean equities fell, while US and European futures retreated.
After Trump and Iranian officials traded public threats about future reprisals, the US leader will now face questions from lawmakers returning to Washington from the year-end break ready to take up a bitter debate over the president’s impeachment by the Democratic-led US House of Representatives and a coming trial in the Republican-controlled Senate.
In the US, reaction to the raid has fallen mostly along party lines, with Republicans hailing the elimination of a leader responsible for terror attacks and Democrats questioning the administration’s assertion that Soleimani presented an “imminent threat.”
Democrats are also asking whether Trump has a broader strategy or plan to deal with the aftermath.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the chamber’s lawmakers announcing a vote this week on a resolution that would limit Trump’s power in any potential military actions regarding Iran.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued the administration’s case on Sunday news shows after more than a dozen calls with foreign counterparts from China to Saudi Arabia.
There were no doubts about the intelligence behind the decision to kill Soleimani, Pompeo said, adding that any moves taken against Tehran would be “lawful.”
That was a response to concerns about Trump’s threat on Saturday to hit “52 Iranian sites,” including cultural targets, if Tehran retaliates.
Trump’s comment raised concerns, because attacks against cultural property are prohibited under the Geneva Convention and the US Department of Defense’s rules of engagement.
“We’ll behave inside the system,” Pompeo said on American Broadcasting Corp’s This Week.
ONE BAD DECISION
Despite Pompeo’s international outreach, there were few signs of strong support among key US allies beyond Israel, while NATO on Monday called an emergency meeting to discuss growing tensions in the region.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson summed up European reaction to the strike on Soleimani, saying: “We will not lament his death,” but added: “We are in close contact with all sides to encourage de-escalation.”
Working to the US advantage is Iran’s dire economic situation following increasingly tight US sanctions that have largely wiped out the country’s ability to sell oil abroad and cut it off from most trade partners.
Some analysts said that the political tensions in Iran would only be briefly masked by Soleimani’s death.
“The killing of a general who wasted a lot of Iran’s resources on Arab civil wars is unlikely to trigger support for the government,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
Pompeo seemed to minimize the significance of Iraq’s legislature calling for a withdrawal of US forces, suggesting that outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi — who said that he was due to meet with Soleimani the morning he was killed about de-escalation efforts between Iran and Saudi Arabia — was acting under enormous pressure from Tehran.
The US is a force for good in Iraq, 17 years after it invaded to oust then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, Pompeo said.
However, the overthrow of the Sunni dictator in 2003 provided an opening that Iran has steadily exploited since, deepening its influence over Shiite-majority Iraq. The legislative vote fell along sectarian and ethnic lines, with Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers abstaining.
It is unlikely US troops will leave Iraq anytime soon, but Sunday’s vote was damning for Trump and US plans for the region.
The diplomatic compound in Baghdad was constructed after the 2003 invasion to be the biggest US embassy in the world, designed to essentially serve as a forward operating base and a listening post in the Middle East.
With his latest deployment of about 3,500 troops to Kuwait, Trump has bolstered US forces by about 17,000 personnel since May last year, undermining his vow to get the country out of “endless wars.”
“Rarely has any single tactical move, untethered from any long-range thinking, produced so many potential strategically negative consequences for the US,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “In one single decision you’ve undermined 17 years of a US mission, fraught though it may be.”
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