Things are still happening. Here’s a selection of tweets.
I’ll add more in the comments as they show up.
This post is in: Iran, Rofer on International Relations, War
Things are still happening. Here’s a selection of tweets.
I’ll add more in the comments as they show up.
by Adam L Silverman| 40 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Iran, Open Threads, Politics, Silverman on Security, War
Bill Arnold in the comments to BettyC’s earlier post asked for some short reading about Iran. While they’re no longer posted on an outward facing website at USAWC, I’m attaching the three cultural assessments I did on 1) the Syrian Civil War, 2) Iran and Hezbullah, and 3) Iraqi sectarian violence. These were all done between spring 2013 and spring 2014. They are unclassified open source cultural assessments prepared by my office, when I had an office, at USAWC in support of various US Army and DOD elements that were dealing with these issues. They’re a bit dated now, for instance, Ahmedinijad is no longer Iran’s president, but they should provide what Bill is looking for.
USAWC_Culture_Ops_Syria_Brief_Final
USAWC_Culture_Report_Iran_Hezbullah_Shia_Near_Abroad_Final
USAWC_Cultural_Operations_Report_Politicization_of_Iraqi_Identity_Final
You can also find my article about the strategic complications of Iran’s human geography at this link. This was published by The Modern War Institute at West Point in August 2018 and is rooted in earlier work I had done for US Army and DOD elements.
Update at 9:05 PM EST
Figured I’d add one more. This is the preliminary write up – just the facts ma’am style – of the tribal history and social study I designed, directed, oversaw, and conducted in central Iraq in 2008. This initial write up was produced at the request of the senior State Department official who ran our brigade combat team’s embedded provincial reconstruction team. I gave him a courtesy briefing of what we’d been finding and he asked if I could write it up ASAP as he wanted to send it back to the Secretary of State as soon as possible. I have no idea if it ever got to Secretary Rice. Regardless, here you go.
HTT_Mada’in_Oral_History_Findings_BCT_Release
There will be a test later…
Open thread!
The Levantine Problem Set: Some Light(ish) ReadingPost + Comments (40)
This post is in: Iran, Rofer on International Relations, Rofer on Nuclear Issues
A lot of claims are flying around about Iran’s actions with regard to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Some things are not yet clear. Here’s the official statement and interpretation by Mehr News:
“The Islamic Republic of Iran, in the fifth step in reducing its commitments, discards the last key component of its operational limitations in the JCPOA, which is the “limit on the number of centrifuges.”
As such, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program no longer faces any operational restrictions, including enrichment capacity, percentage of enrichment, amount of enriched material, and research and development.
From here on, Iran’s nuclear program will be developed solely based on its technical needs.
Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA will continue as before.
If the sanctions are lifted and Iran benefits from its interests enshrined in the JCPOA, the Islamic Republic is ready to return to its commitments.
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) is obliged to take the necessary steps and arrangements in coordination with the President.”
US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled Washington out of the JCPOA in May 2018, and reimposed “toughest ever” sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of global criticism.
In response to the US unilateral move, as well as the European signatories’ failure to safeguard Iran’s economic interests in the face of US sanctions, Tehran rowed back on its nuclear commitments step-by-step in compliance with Articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA, but stressed that its retaliatory measures will be reversible as soon as Europe finds practical ways to shield the mutual trade from the US sanctions.
As a first step, Iran increased its enriched uranium stockpile to beyond the 300 kilograms set by the JCPOA.
In the second step, Tehran began enriching uranium to purity rates beyond the JCPOA limit of 3.76 percent.
In the third phase, after the Europeans failed to meet a 60-day deadline to meet Iran’s demands and fulfill their commitments under the deal, Iran started up advanced centrifuges to boost the country’s stockpile of enriched uranium and activated 20 IR-4 and 20 IR-6 centrifuges for research and development purposes.
In November, Iran began injecting gas into centrifuges at the Fordow plant as part of its fourth step away from the JCPOA under the supervision of the IAEA.
Iran will continue to cooperate with IAEA inspections. This is important, because it keep us informed of what is happening in Iran’s nuclear complex. Iran remains within the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is their commitment not to build nuclear weapons.
Worth requoting from above:
If the sanctions are lifted and Iran benefits from its interests enshrined in the JCPOA, the Islamic Republic is ready to return to its commitments.
This has been Iran’s position all along. They have acted in a measured and predictable way. In fact, they have done less than they might have; a number of experts expected today’s announcement to be that they were enriching uranium up to 20% U-235, which would have been worse than that they are removing limits on numbers of centrifuges.
There are fine points that are still not clear, like what will happen to the Arak reactor and to the international cooperation they have been participating in to convert their nuclear installations to peaceful use.
Here are the initial tweets in a couple of threads from people involved in the negotiations and implementation of the JCPOA. Worth reading in full.
Lots has already been said on the #Iran #JCPOA announcement, but a few thoughts: A thread:
Iran’s announcement today was as predictable as it was not. Lots of us thought Iran would announce a move to enriching at near 20%. It did not do that today. This is good news. 1/x
— Richard Johnson (@johnsonrc01) January 5, 2020
Iran's announced intention to no longer observe any JCPOA restrictions is unfortunate but hardly unexpected in the circumstances. This does mean that the slow-burning nuclear crisis we were going to have at some point this year is probably going to get going now…
— Richard Nephew (@RichardMNephew) January 5, 2020
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
by Adam L Silverman| 184 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, Foreign Affairs, Iran, Military, Open Threads, Silverman on Security, War, Cybersecurity
Cole muses:
and if they were smart, they would ignore the big cities, who have the law enforcement to handle the chaos. Attack middle america where all the people are scared shitless already
— John Cole (@Johngcole) January 4, 2020
christ, they'd have all the gun humpoing gomers out in force, probably end up killing a bunch of innocent people who look like terrorists. Iran could start total fucking chaos here for basically nothing.
— John Cole (@Johngcole) January 4, 2020
Given the asymmetry in the types of military power between the US and Iran, as well as the ability to wield it, Iran’s response to yesterday’s strike that killed Suleimani and Muhandis, and tonight’s strike near Taiji (Taiji is where Abu Ghraib is for those wondering about where Taiji is – it is the northernmost of the agricultural districts, or qadas, that ring Baghdad and separate Baghdad Province from the surrounding provinces), will undoubtedly be unconventional. But it is important to keep in mind that an unconventional response doesn’t mean an unconventional use of military power. The Iranians, like all states, have other elements of national power that they can leverage and use to respond. We refer to these elements of national power as the DIME-FIL (Diplomatic, Informational, Military, Economic, Financial, Intelligence, and Legal). The Iranians also have a well developed and effective cyber operations capacity. And the cyber domain, the tools used to operate effectively in it, and the cyber operations themselves are all very effective ways of utilizing the non-military forms of power.
As we consider what the Iranians might do, we need to move beyond the low hanging fruit of attacks by their proxies on US and our Coalition partners in the region. Or attacks on the petroleum sector in our regional partners that would spike oil and gas prices. I’m not suggesting these won’t happen, I’m sure there will be some of them, but these are obvious and we can plan for them, to manage them, and to mitigate them. There are also less obvious targets and less obvious weapons and tools that the Iranians can use to strike back.
This past fall DHS, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Arlington, VA Police Department participated in a table top simulation, dubbed Operation Blackout, focusing on the 2020 election. They were the Blue Team (the good guys). The opposing force, or Red Team (the bad guys), were a group of white hat hackers. The Red Team were not permitted to hack the actual election in the simulation, they couldn’t hack machines, voting systems, anything like that. So what did they do? They hacked everything else. And, as a result, within the simulated world of the exercise they created so much chaos that martial law was declared by the person on the Blue Team playing the president in the exercise and the 2020 election, within that notional world, was cancelled. You can read the Red Team’s write up of the exercise here.
In early 2018 I prepared a strategic analysis on Russia’s active measures campaign. I wrote:
Putin’s cyberwarfare has also targeted actual American infrastructure. Russian for cover officials have been tracked mapping US critical physical infrastructure, such as the communication and power transmission grid. This was in support of a cyberwarfare campaign to infiltrate and compromise another important American center of gravity: the US power generation and transmission grid. Putin’s ability to weaponize information and the platforms where American’s get their information combined with his ability to bring down all or portions of the US power grid should have every national security professional very, very, very worried. Putin’s cyberwarriors have already tried to create a response through planting false social media stories of actual fake news reports about a foreign terrorist attack on the US energy sector, an ebola outbreak, and a riot in response to a police shooting. All of which never happened. Imagine what happens when Putin starts turning parts of the US power grid off during extreme weather events while at the same time he’s spreading disinformation made to look like actual news reports or official municipal, state, and/or Federal responses to the disaster he’s created. This is the threat we face.
Now imagine what happens when the Iranians start doing the things that I described above or creating the type of chaos that the Red Team created in the 2020 election simulation. And not in or just in New York or DC or LA or Seattle or Miami or Atlanta or Chicago, but in more suburban and rural areas. In red states that have no where near the state and local capabilities to respond. Imagine what happens when they hack into banks and the financial service sector and start stealing financial information and manipulating the markest. Imagine what happens when they release the Signals Intercepts they have of US elected and appointed officials, as well as those of people running major corporations or the news networks and newspapers.
And this is where the embarrassment comes in. If you want to strike back at the President, you do so in a way that gets under his skin. Skin that he demonstrates daily on his Twitter feed is exceedingly thin. The President is noted for spending hours speaking to world leaders, his outside advisors and friends on an unsecured phone from the White House residence each night, or from one of his properties when he goes to Mar a Lago or plays golf at his clubs, presents a target rich environment all on his own. The Iranians have a target rich environment given the President’s well documented poor Op-Sec and Info-Sec practices. The Iranians have a target rich environment given Rudy Giuliani’s poor Op-Sec and Info-Sec practices. The Iranians have a target rich environment because Jared Kushner communicates with Muhammed bin Salman on WhatsApp, which is not secure. The Iranians have a target rich environment in the largely wide open US information and cyber domains. And they have the ability to exploit weaknesses in those domains to leverage power, other than military power, across the DIME-FIL. And they will leverage those capabilities to wage an unconventional war against the US and one of the strategic objectives will be to embarrass the President. And that embarrassment will be both an end in itself and done to goad him into badly overreacting out of anger, which will then provide the Iranians with further opportunities to wage their unconventional campaign.
Open thread!
Iran’s Response: Unconventional and Most Likely EmbarrassingPost + Comments (184)
This post is in: Crimes against humanity, Iran, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Decline and Fall, Peak Wingnut Was a Lie!, Their Motto: Apocalypse Now
The AP is reporting another US drone strike in Iraq:
Another airstrike almost exactly 24 hours after the one that killed Soleimani hit two cars carrying Iran-backed militia north of Baghdad, killing five people, an Iraqi official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. The Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces confirmed the strike, saying it targeted one of its medical convoys near the stadium in Taji, north of Baghdad. The group denied any of its top leaders were killed.
I hope that every American in Iraq is taking really good care of their personal security; they are all targets now.
And I really hope against hope that the millions of Iraqis and Iranians in the crossfire don’t get further grief added to the tally of misery they’ve experienced for decades now.
And finally, I’ll note that war when pursued by sober and prudent leaders, who define their goals, identify strategy and tactics that can plausibly lead to those ends, and enact an ongoing process that can deal with what happens when any plan makes contact with the opposition is still a wasteful, tragic, destructive and always contingent and hugely risky proposition.
And then there is the GOP, and the whole feckless troupe of Trumpanzees.
Fuck.
Here’s a John Prine song that seems way too on point today:
Image: Peter Paul Rubens, Massacre of the Innocents, between 1611 and 1612
by Adam L Silverman| 313 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Iran, Military, Open Threads, Silverman on Security, War
BREAKING: #IRAQ OFFICIAL TV ANNOUNCES #IRAN IRGC LEADER QASSEM SULEIMANI IS ASSASSINATED.
ALSO KILLED HEAD OF KATAIB HEZBOLLAH ABU MEHDI MUHANDIS https://t.co/K0cJn9rMIc
— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) January 3, 2020
Iraqi state TV is reporting the "martyrdom" of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Mohandis on the Baghdad airport road.
— Liz Sly (@LizSly) January 3, 2020
MP Ahmed Al-Assadi, spokesman of PMU and Fatah coalition confirmed in a WhatsApp group belong to the PMU the death of Qassim Solaimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Mohandus
— Mustafa Salim (@Mustafa_salimb) January 3, 2020
I cannot emphasize enough how significant this is! Major General Suleimani was not just Iran’s point man in Iraq, he was also coordinating Iran’s proxy forces in Syria and Lebanon. When Suleimani arrived in Syria in 2013 he took control of the theater on behalf of Iran, its Syrian client Assad, and Assad’s other benefactor Putin, which is what initially turned around the fortunes of Assad’s forces. Suleimani was, arguably, the best strategist in the region who was native to the Middle East. Dexter Filkins wrote a long profile of him in 2013 for The New Yorker.
Reuters is now reporting that the US is responsible for the strike that killed Suleimani and Muhandis.
U.S. officials tell Reuters that strikes have been carried in Baghdad on Friday out against two targets linked to Iran.
— Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) January 3, 2020
What we don’t know yet, what we will not know until they inform us through their actual response, is what the response from Iran will be. For that we have to wait.
Update at 8:50 PM EST
As I’ve now had a bit of time to digest the news, here’s a bit more developed initial analysis:
My initial take regarding the killing of Suleimani is that this decapitates Iran’s capabilities in the Twelver Shi’a sphere of influence they were trying to build from Iran through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon in the short term. Suleimani was their theater commander, specifically coordinating the proxies in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. It is also my professional opinion that he was the best strategist in the region who was native to the region. So a major blow to Iran’s, as well as their proxies, immediate capability. Suleimani was also very powerful back in Iran. There were mutterings he might succeed Khameini as Supreme Leader despite not being an ayatollah.
This strike will also enrage the Iranians and provide the Iranian government with an internal opening for influence and propaganda to rally support for the Iranian state among a domestic Iranian population that may be wavering. So it will likely retard reform in general and attempts at democratization in specific in the short to medium term. Especially if there is immediate Iranian response and/or escalation to today’s attack and a US response to Iran’s actions that can be used by the Iranian government to reinforce its standing with the Iranian people.
Finally, I don’t see why anyone in the Iranian government would talk to anyone in the US government at this point while the current administration is in place. The President, his senior officials, and surrogates have made it clear that they really aren’t interested in talking. Last week Putin announced that he’s not going to go along with the sanctions regime against Iran any longer, which further reinforces to Iran that they don’t need to talk to us as they have Putin to leverage as a patron. I also expect that Iran will sell their oil to the Chinese because Xi could care less about our sanctions. There is no way to squeeze the Iranians economically as the government is impervious to the pain and has ways to sell its oil to ease that pain. You can find my take on why making war in Iran would be strategic malpractice unless we were prepared for total war and even then it isn’t a good idea at West Point’s Modern War Institute.
Open thread!
by Adam L Silverman| 95 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Iran, Military, Open Threads, Silverman on Security, War
Over the past couple of days Iranian backed Shi’a militia in Iraq, which describe themselves as Islamic Resistance, have attacked the heavily fortified US Embassy in Baghdad in what appears to be an attempt to besiege or occupy it or parts of it. It is important to keep in mind that US Embassy Baghdad is a large and heavily fortified compound. Perhaps the most heavily fortified diplomatic compound that we or anyone else has anywhere. The damage that was done by Ktaib Hezbullah and Nujabaa was largely done to buildings and structures around the perimeter. That doesn’t make the assault on the facility any less frightening or dangerous for the US diplomatic and Interagency personnel that live and work within the fortified embassy.
The Washington Post’s Baghdad Bureau’s Mustafa Salim is now reporting that the assault and attempted siege or occupation is over.
They started to retreat from the US embassy and starting setting up tents in Abu Nawas street which is opposite to the embassy across the river, outside the green zone.
— Mustafa Salim (@Mustafa_salimb) January 1, 2020
Some already retreated and started to set up tents outside the green zone pic.twitter.com/rAlVQ3vX4a
— Mustafa Salim (@Mustafa_salimb) January 1, 2020
Lots of tents are still in the street of the US embassy pic.twitter.com/jTEKycsmjX
— Mustafa Salim (@Mustafa_salimb) January 1, 2020
Those people who are staying are KH and Nujabaa (both classified as terrorist organizations by the United States) they said “we are Islamic resistance not part of PMU, we haven’t received orders from our leaders”
— Mustafa Salim (@Mustafa_salimb) January 1, 2020
KH are leaving the area of the US embassy, with celebration chants and fireworks because they considered it as “victory”
It’s FINALLY over, happy new year everyone. pic.twitter.com/YYaog9vRCd— Mustafa Salim (@Mustafa_salimb) January 1, 2020
There are two outstanding questions: 1) what happens now? and 2) why did this happen. To answer the first, the quick reaction forces of the 100 Marines that were sent midday yesterday and the initial quick reaction companies from 82nd Airborne Division that were mobilized shortly after that are en route. The 3rd Brigade Combat Team/82nd Airborne Division (3BCT/82ndABN – the Panther Brigade) is the US’s designated rapid reaction brigade, but it is partially deployed to Afghanistan right now, so it is unclear just how much of the BCT is available if they have to deploy an entire brigade combat team. I would also expect the State Department’s Regional Security Officer (RSO) is conducting crisis action and contingency planning, as well as wargaming scenarios with his or her staff, as well as with counterparts from the Department of Defense. I expect that a Non-combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) contingency plan is being prepared in case the assault on the embassy is restarted.
The second answer is provided by Salim:
Those groups considered the protests as conspiracy act by the United States because it’s threatening the Iranian influence in Iraq, they even described the protesters as “American Joker gangs”
— Mustafa Salim (@Mustafa_salimb) January 1, 2020
They were thousands of people some with weapons and military vehicles, then they headed towards the fortified green zone where the US and other embassies are located. This area is allowed for civilians, only those with special access, but those crowds couldn’t be stopped.
— Mustafa Salim (@Mustafa_salimb) January 1, 2020
They wrote “Solaimani is my leader” and other graffitis and they holding photos of Khamenei. It was thousands of people chanting “death to America and Israel” among the crowd there were senior militia commanders like Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandus, who is classified as terrorist by the US
— Mustafa Salim (@Mustafa_salimb) January 1, 2020
What Salim is reporting is that the Iranian theater leadership decided that the US was responsible for the emerging Iraqi displeasure with the Iraqi government, its ties to Iran, and to Iran’s presence and actions in Iraq. This displeasure also appears to once again be breaking along tribal and sectarian lines. One of the major ongoing problems in Iraq that leads to instability is not just the tribal or sectarian divide, but the divide between the Iraqis that never went into exile and the Iraqis that did and came back. Especially those Iraqi Shi’a that went into exile in Iran, came back, and have been running the government since the US’ Coalition Provisional Authority empowered them to form the majority coalitions in successive governments. I spent almost six months conducting between 40 to 50 interviews with both Sunni and Shi’a tribal and religious leaders (often the same people as many sheikhs are also imams) across central Iraq in the summer and fall of 2008. With the exception of some of the sub-sheiks or sheiks of very small, rural tribes, all of the sheikhs and imams I interviewed, including and often especially the Shi’a ones, made it very clear that they did not like and did not trust the Shi’a political leaders that went into exile in Iran and had been empowered by being given control of the Government of Iraq (GOI). It was during this time that then Prime Minister Maliki, leading a coalition government with a Shi’a majority made up of leaders, like Maliki, who had gone into exile in Iran, began to telegraph that he was going to move against the Sawha (Awakenings movement) and Sons of Iraq (the tribal militias we were training and partnering with). These tensions have never been resolved, have begun to bubble over again, and Iran decided it was a threat to its influence in Iraq and needed to change the narrative. And the collateral damage from the retaliatory air strike this past week provided the Iranians with the opening they needed.
Now we wait to see if cooler heads can and will prevail.
Open thread!
The Assault on US Embassy Baghdad Has Ended. For Now…Post + Comments (95)