Iran has escalated threats as the anniversary of the killing of Qasem Soleimani rapidly approaches. Military.com. Soleimani was killed in an airstrike in Iraq last January 3rd. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani called the strike unforgivable and claimed that Iran had a plan for revenge against the United States and President Donald Trump. President Trump warned that any Iranian move that resulted in an American death would result in retaliation. As a show of force two American B-52 bombers flew over the Persian Gulf this week.
My Comment:
More saber rattling from Iran. They have been making major threats via social media and it's clear that they are still angry that their terrorist leader, Qasem Soleimani, is dead. His death upturned many of Iran's plans in the region.
Can Iran do anything though? They have several options for causing chaos. First they could use their military in a direct strike. They had already done so in the wake of the death of Soleimani, launching several missiles against US targets in Iraq. Though that strike accomplished next to nothing they could certainly do it again.
A more threatening move would be to launch attacks using their proxy forces in Iraq. Those militias are somewhat powerful and have moved against US forces there in the past. They were responsible for a recent attack on the "Green Zone" in Baghdad and they could do so again. It's pretty unlikely they would accomplish much given the disparity in combat power and US air support. A sustained attack would do much more damage to those militias then it would to any American soldiers in the area.
The most threatening move Iran could pull would be to use their sleeper cells and proxies active in the west to launch terror attacks. Iran has infiltrated quite a few people into the United States and Europe and those people could very easily be activated to launch attacks on citizens, infrastructure or make assassination attempts. Doing so would be suicidal though as these attacks would almost certainly result in open warfare.
Indeed, any attack would be idiotic on the part of Iran. If they cause any American deaths in any of these scenarios, President Trump will respond. It might not lead to an all out war but it could lead to major strikes on military targets. Remember, President Trump almost already struck Iran but decided at the last moment that a major strike on Iran for their actions was not proportional as they hadn't killed any Americans. If they do so now that would change the calculus.
And picking a fight now seems stupid with the election in flux. If Joe Biden gets in then there is zero point for Iran picking a fight. Biden will lay down for Iran and will try to bring back the Iran nuclear deal that was made by his former administration under Obama. All Iran would have to do is wait a month and see if conditions are more favorable. And if Trump does stay in office they can strike then.
My guess is this is a bunch of saber rattling and nothing more. Iran lost a ton of face when Qasem Soleimani was killed and by making threats like this they are trying to get some of it back. Given they settled on an ineffective missile strike when Soleimani died I can't imagine they would try and start a war now.
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