WarSclerotic

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran claimed credit for a missile attack on Kurdish opposition groups in Koya in northern Iraq. The attack on Saturday killed a dozen and wounded numerous others. It was the first time Iranian forces had used this kind of precision missile attack deep inside Iraq. The brazen daylight missile attack is a message from Tehran to the region that it can do what it wants, not only in neighboring Iraq, but throughout the Middle East. In the last year Iranian missiles and Iranian-supported groups using Tehran’s technical advisors have targeted Saudi Arabia from Yemen and Israel from Syria. As Washington seeks to pressure Iran, the missile threat is clear indication that Tehran is flexing its muscles in the face of sanctions.

The IRGC attempted a decapitation strike against the Kurdish KDP-I, an opposition group that has a headquarters in Koya. Numerous senior leaders were present and a missile crashed into the building where they were meeting. This was a precise and unprecedented strike. Although Iran has targeted Kurdish groups in Iraq before, and it has fired missiles at other opposition groups, the missiles used in this attack were precise and showcases Iranian intelligence operations and know how.

The missile attack on Koya should not be seen as an isolated Iran regime attack on an opposition group. Iran has been fighting Kurdish opposition for years and in Iran there have been increasing clashes. But the missile strike was an escalation and should be seen in the context of the Iranian-backed Houthis using ballistic missiles to target Riyadh, flying some 900 km from their launch point. Iranian forces from Syria have also targeted and tested Israel’s defenses. They flew a drone into Israeli airspace in February and fired a salvo of missiles in May. Recent satellite images show missile production facilities in northern Syria. Reports also indicate that Iran has transferred missiles to the Hashd al-Shaabi, or Shia militias, in Iraq. And Iran has armed Hezbollah with missiles for years and also supplied Hamas with technical support.

The big picture then is an Iranian missile threat throughout the region. The National Defense Authorization Act signed by US President Donald Trump in August included passages about Iran’s ballistic missile threat. Congress had looked deeply into how Iran’s missile program threatens the region. During a June speech at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies US Under Secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence Sigal Mandelker said that “Iran must end its proliferation of ballistic missiles.”

US allies in the region have missile defense technology to confront the Iranian threat. Israel has a layered system of missile defense included Iron Dome, David’s Sling and the Arrow program, while Saudi Arabia has used Patriot missile batteries to stop the Houthi missiles. This has proven effective. It is also why the IRGC decided to test out its missiles by targeting defenseless Kurdish groups in northern Iraq.

The IRGC’s strike on the Kurds is a message to Washington and to Israel. It shows how the IRGC operates across borders and across with the region, seeing Iran’s policy in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon as linked into one larger program. The IRGC is also the group responsible for working with various proxies and Shia militias across the region. The US administration’s response to the missile attack in Iraq will reveal whether Washington takes this new front in northern Iraq seriously and whether the discussions about stopping Iran’s activities see Iraq as a frontier to confront these missile threats, or whether Iraq will continue to be an area that Iran can operate freely in.

United States President Donald Trump will later this month chair a high-level United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, in a bid to tighten the diplomatic screws on Iran. The American leader is expected to use the session to focus the spotlight on Tehran’s regional expansionism through its proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen; its ballistic missile program; and its global arm sales—all of which, according to the Trump administration, violate existing UNSC resolutions.

“We want to make sure that [the Iranians] understand the world is watching [and] that is the biggest reason for this meeting,” US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley explained, leading analysts to posit that the primary American goal is to continue ratcheting up pressure on the mullahs.

In response, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused the US president of hypocrisy, tweeting, “There’s only one UNSC resolution on Iran. @realDonaldTrump is violating it & bullying others to do same. Now he plans to abuse [the rotating] presidency of [the Security Council which Washington holds in September] to divert a session—item devoted to Palestine for 70 yrs—to blame Iran for horrors US & clients have unleashed across M.E. #chutzpah.”

Zarif was referring to the unanimous adoption in July 2015 of UNSC resolution 2231, which endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal—and President Trump’s subsequent unilateral withdrawal from the pact in May.

Washington has to date failed to condemn Iran in the Security Council due to the veto power of the latter’s backers Russia and China. This past February, for example, Moscow torpedoed a US

bid to denounce Tehran for shipping weaponry to Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“[President Trump] is looking to mobilize the support of the international community, especially the signatories of the Iran nuclear deal,” with regards to economic sanctions, Dr. Raz Zimmt, a Senior Research Fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, asserted to The Media Line.

“[The Iranians] consider Trump’s appearance as a provocation and they expect him to use this opportunity to attack Iran,” he elaborated. “The main question is whether Trump wants to use this opportunity to arrange a meeting with [Iranian] President Hassan Rouhani, assuming he will be attending. We still don’t know because Zarif might be sent instead. My assessment is that Tehran will [anyways] never agree to that meeting.

“All we will see is continued anti-Iranian rhetoric so I don’t think [Trump’s speech] will change anything in particular,” Dr. Zimmt predicted. “Each side is just going to use this opportunity to express their stance.” Dr. Eldad Pardo, an Iran expert at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, stressed to The Media Line that reining in Tehran is a “major foreign policy issue for the U.S.” and that the UNSC meeting would be geared towards getting the Islamic Republic back to the negotiating table.

“Trump wants to change Iran’s behavior by exerting a lot of pressure on it,” he explained. “Most of all, the U.S. would like to see Iran give up its nuclear ambitions” and destabilizing activities in the region.

“In order to pressure Iran, you need to rebuild the crippling sanctions and for this you need an international coalition,” Dr. Zimmt noted, arguing that other nations would likely abide by Washington’s demands in order to maintain crucial diplomatic and trade ties.

A second batch of US sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector will take effect in November, with a report this week by Oxford Economics suggesting that the new penalties will “cripple the [Iranian] economy” which could to contract by as much as 4 percent next year.

President Trump on Wednesday contended that Iran is in “total turmoil” and that the Iranian regime is now “just worrying about [its] own survival.”

The Security Council session is slated to take place on September 26 during the annual opening of UN General Assembly in New York.

Charles Bybelezer contributed to this report.