Pompeo and Netanyahu paved a path to war with Iran, and they're pushing
Trump again
Though it narrowly averted war with Iran this January, the Trump
administration is still pushing for all-out military conflict. The
architects of the drive to war, Mike Pompeo and Benjamin Netanyahu, have
relied on a series of cynical provocations to force Trump's hand.
Gareth Porter
The administration of President Donald Trump may escape the most recent
conflict with Iran without war, however, a dangerous escalation is just over
the horizon. And as before, the key factors driving the belligerence are
not outraged Iraqi militia leaders or their allies in Iran, but Trump's
secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, who has long sought to draw the US into a military confrontation
with Iran.
Throughout the fall of 2019, Netanyahu ordered a series of Israeli strikes
against Iranian allies in Iraq and against Lebanese Hezbollah units. He and
Pompeo hoped the attacks would provoke a reaction from their targets that
could provide a tripwire outright war with Iran. As could have been
expected, corporate US media missed the story, perhaps because it failed to
reinforce the universally accepted narrative of a hyper-aggressive Iran
emboldened by Trump's failure to "deter" it following Iran's shoot-down of a
U.S. drone in June, and an alleged Iranian attack on Saudi oil facility in
September.
Pompeo and John Bolton set the stage for the tripwire strategy in May 2019
with a statement by national security adviser John Bolton citing "troubling
and escalatory indications and warnings," implying an Iranian threat without
providing concrete details. That vague language echoed a previous vow by
Bolton that "any attack" by Iran or "proxy" forces "on United States
interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force."
Then came a campaign of leaks to major news outlet suggesting that Iran was
planning attacks on U.S. military personnel. The day after Bolton's
statement, the Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed U.S. officials
cited "U.S. intelligence" showing that Iran "drew up plans to target U.S.
forces in Iraq and possibly Syria, to orchestrate attacks in the Bab
el-Mandeb strait near Yemen through proxies and in the Persian Gulf with its
own armed drones.."
The immediate aim of this campaign was to gain Trump's approval for
contingency plans for a possible war with Iran that included the option of
sending as many 120,000 U.S. troops in the region. Trump balked at such
war-planning, however, complaining privately that Bolton and Pompeo were
pushing him into a war with Iran. Following Iran's shoot-down of the U.S.
drone over the Strait of Hormuz on June 20, Pompeo and Bolton suggested the
option of killing Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in retaliation. But Trump
refused to sign off on the assassination of Iran's top general unless Iran
killed an American first, according to current and former officials.
From that point on, the provocation strategy was focused on trying to
trigger an Iranian reaction that would involve a U.S. casualty. That's when
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interjected himself and his
military as a central player in the drama. From July 19 through August 20,
the Israeli army carried out five strikes against Iraqi militias allied with
Iran, blowing up four weapons depots and killing as many Shiite militiamen
and Iranian offcers, according to press accounts.
The Israeli bombing escalated on August 25, when two strikes on the brigade
headquarters of a pro-Iranian militia and on a militia convoy killed the
brigade commander and six other militiamen, and a drone strike on
Hezbollah's headquarters in south Beirut blew the windows out of one of
Hezbollah's media offices.
Netanyahu and Pompeo sabotage Trump and Macron's attempt at diplomacy
Behind those strikes was Netanyahu's sense of alarm over Trump toying with
the idea of seeking negotiations with Iran. Netanyahu had likely learned
about Trump's moves toward detente from Pompeo, who had long been his
primary contact in the administration. On August 26, French President
Emanuel Macron revealed that he was working to broker a Trump-Rouhani
meeting. Netanyahu grumbled about the prospect of U.S.-Iranian talks
"several times" with his security cabinet the day before launching the
strikes.
Two retired senior Israeli generals, Gen. Amos Yadlin and Gen. Assaf Oron,
criticized those strikes for increasing the likelihood of harsh retaliation
by Iran or one of its regional partners.The generals complained that
Netanyahu's attacks were "designed to prod [Iran] into a hasty response" and
thus end Trump's flirtation with talking to Iran. That much was obviously
true, but Pompeo and Netanyahu also knew that provoking an attack by Iran or
one of its allies might cause one or more of the American casualties they
sought. And once American blood was spilled, Trump would have no means to
resist authorizing a major escalation.
Kataib Hezbollah and other pro-Iran Iraqi militias blamed the United States
for the wave of lethal Israeli attacks on their fighters. These militias
responded in September by launching a series of rocket attacks on Iraqi
government bases where U.S. troops were present. They also struck targets in
the vicinity of the U.S. Embassy.
The problem for Netanyahu and Pompeo, however, was that none of those
strikes killed an American. What's more, U.S. intelligence officials knew
from NSA monitoring of communications between the IRGC and the militias that
Iran had explicitly forbidden direct attacks on US personnel.
Netanyahu was growing impatient. For several days in late October and early
November, he met with his national security cabinet to discuss a new Israeli
attack to precipitate a possible war with Iran, according to reports by
former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Oren hinted at how a war with Iran
might start. '[P]erhaps Israel miscalculates," he suggested, "hitting a
particularly sensitive target," which, in his view, could spark "a big war
between Israel and Iran."
But on December 27, before Netanyahu could put such a strategy into action,
the situation changed dramatically. A barrage of rockets slammed into an
Iraqi base near Kirkuk where U.S. military personnel were stationed, killing
a U.S military contractor. Suddenly, Pompeo had the opening he needed. At a
meeting the following day, Pompeo led Trump to believe that Iranian
"proxies" had attacked the base, and pressed him to "reestablish deterrence"
with Iran by carrying out a military response.
In fact, U.S. and Iraqi officials on the spot had reached no such
conclusion, and the investigation led by the head of intelligence for the
Iraqi federal police at the base was just beginning that same day. But
Pompeo and his allies, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of Joint
Chiefs Gen. Mark A Milley, were not interested in waiting for its
conclusion.
A deception brings the US and Iran to the brink of war
The results of a subsequent Iraqi investigation revealed that the rocket
barrage had been launched from a Sunni area of Kirkuk with a strong Islamic
State presence, and that IS fighters had carried out three attacks not far
from the base on Iraqi forces stationed there in the previous ten days. US
signals intercepts found no evidence that Iraqi militias had shifted from
their policy of avoiding American casualties at all cost.
Kept in the dark by Pompeo about these crucial facts, Trump agreed to launch
five airstrikes against Kataib Hezbollah and another pro-Iran militia at
five locations in Iraq and Syria that killed 25 militiamen and wounded 51.
He may have also agreed in principle to the killing of Soleimani when the
opportunity presented itself.
Iran responded to the attacks on its Iraqi militia allies by approving a
violent protest at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad January 31. The
demonstrators did not penetrate the embassy building itself and were
abruptly halted the same day. But Pompeo managed to persuade Trump to
authorize the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran's second most powerful
figure, presumably by hammering on the theme of "reestablishing deterrence"
with Iran.
Soleimani was not only the second most powerful man in Iran and the main
figure in its foreign policy; he was idolized by millions of the most
strongly nationalist citizens of the country. Killing him in a drone strike
was an open invitation to the military confrontation Netanyahu and Pompeo so
desperately sought.
During the crucial week from December 28 through January 4, while Pompeo was
pressing Trump to retaliate against Iran not just once but twice, it was
clear that he was coordinating closely with Netanyahu. During that single
week, he spoke by phone with Netanyahu on three separate occasions.
What Pompeo and Netanyahu could not have anticipated was that Iran's missile
attack on the U.S. sector of Iraq's sprawling al-Asad airbase in retaliation
would be so precise that it scored direct hits on six U.S. targets without
killing a single American. (The US service members were saved in part
because the rockets were fired after the Iraqi government had passed on a
warning from Iran to prepare for it). Because no American was killed in the
strike, Trump again decided against further retaliation.
Towards another provocation
Although Pompeo and Netanyahu failed to ignite a military conflict with
Iran, there is good reason to believe that they will try again before both
are forced to leave their positions or power.
In an article for the Atlantic last November, former Israeli Ambassador
Michael Oren, channeled Netanyahu when he declared it would be "better for
conflict [with Iran] to occur during the current [Trump] administration,
which can be counted on to provide Israel with the three sources of American
assistance it traditionally receives in wartime," than to "wait until
later."
Oren was not the only Israeli official to suggest that Israeli is likely to
go even further in strikes against Iranian and Iranian allies targets in
2020. After listening to Israeli army Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi speak in
late December, Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel reported that the
Israeli army chief conveyed the clear impression that a "more serious
confrontation with Iran in the coming year as an almost unquestionable
necessity." His interviews with Israeli military and political figures
further indicated that Israel would "intensity its efforts to hit Iran in
the northern area."
Shockingly, Pompeo has exploited the Coronavirus pandemic to impose even
harsher sanctions on Iran while intimidating foreign businesses to prevent
urgently needed medical supplies from entering the country. The approaching
presidential election gives both Pompeo and Netanyahu a powerful reason to
plot another strike, or a series of strikes aimed at drawing the US into a
potential Israeli confrontation with Iran.
Activists and members of Congress concerned about keeping the US out of war
with Iran must be acutely aware of the danger and ready to respond
decisively when the provocation occurs.
