In passing, I should mention that our original fight in Iraq was with Al Qada, remember 9/!! an the destruction of the Manhatten Towers and the damage to the Pentagon with more than 2,000 people killed,
So what does Iran want? I think there are at least three things.
(1) They want to push Isreal into the sea. This we can't tolerate. We were in at the founding of Israel and I agree we are committed to its success.* So I don't know what we can do about this.
(2) They want the U.S. to get out of the Middle East. This is where real conflict goes on. We feel that if we apply enough economic sanctions that Iran will say "Uncle" and behave (from our viewpoint). It doesn't seem to be effective.
(3) Maybe they would like to annex Eastern Iraq that is dominated by Shiites, the religion in Iran. We are committed to the nation-building of Iraq starting in March of 2003 by President George Bush (Bush-43). President Obama tried to pull our troops out of Iraq. After all, we had been training Iraqi troops for many years, but the first time they were confronted by ISIS (composed of Sunni forces), the Iraq troops threw down their arms and ran. That was really depressing. Well we are committed to nation-building of Iraq so we have to oppose Iran and sent about 5,000 troops back in
There may be other things Iran would like, but I feel these are the main ones.
Going back to Gen. Soleimani, we recently assassinated him for reasons unclear. It was claimed that Iran was within weeks or days of a major attack in which maybe 200 of our troops would die. This seemed phony at the time and as time rolled on we were told that the attack was within days. So we assassinated him. What was our goal? Did our politicians really think that Iran would give up if we did that?
What happened was that the people of Iran had been demonstrating against their government, and the assassination turned them toward demonstrating against us. Some in our administration claimed that the demonstrations against us did not occur, but there is a photo of burning and burnt American flags.
Gen Soliemani's Deputy took over Soliemani's position. We don't seem to know much about him. He doesn't seem as charismatic as Soleimani, but it isn't wise to outshine your boss. We will see. Certainly, the Deputy knew of the plans for the supposed attack on U.S. forces (if indeed there was one). In fact, Gen. Soleimani might have been the "front man" getting militias organized to attack our forces, and the Deputy may have been the one to actually do the planning. We don't know.
At any rate, Iran did not carry out the plan but flew some rockets against two Iraqi airports where we had troops. From what I have seen, the rockets did not do much damage beyond destroying some hangers (see figure).** Some of the rockets didn't even go off. It seems that many of the rockets missed the target, no doubt intended as the rockets were very precise that flew against the Saudi Arabian oil fields. The troops had time to get into bunkers so we may not have had any casualties for our troops. Iran for local consumption told their people that there was massive damage. It sounds like our phantom message of imminent danger of an attack on our troops.
Actually, there was an unsuccessful attack in Yemen on another leader of Quds Force (Abdul Reza Shahlai). where the U.S. tried unsuccessfully to kill a second major Iranian military figure.
The mission to kill Mr. Shahlai shows that the Trump administration was seeking to hit multiple officials from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which includes the Quds Force. Both organizations direct Iran’s proxy forces in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.***
The successful strike in Iraq and the unsuccessful attack in Yemen were meant to knock the Guards Corps back on its heels, and some senior military and intelligence officials believed a drastic strike against the group would effectively damage Iran’s ability to direct its proxy forces.***
But other officials, including intelligence officials, believed strikes against senior commanders were risky, and might have the effect of inciting the broader conflict the Trump administration said it was trying to avoid.***
I'm afraid that I feel the situation with Iran is hopeless and that we are involved in an endless war.
* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/03/buying-politiians-votes.html
** https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/jan/08/satellite-photos-reveal-extent-of-damage-from/
https://graphics.reuters.com/IRAQ-SECURITY/0100B4VR2Q5/index.html
*** https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/world/middleeast/trump-iran-yemen.html
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