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War

Creating Their Own Reality

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The Bushies claimed they could “create their own reality” through their actions. That was arrogant. Their political heirs are creating their own reality by believing Commander Bananapants’ off-the-cuff lies. That’s delusional:

I’m no national security expert, but wouldn’t the Secretary of Defense be the person who’d present the evidence to Trump if it exists? Or at least be privy to that classified information, particularly if, as Esper claims, he’s the one who’s deploying troops to counter the alleged threats?

It’s all bullshit. President Brainworms made this shit up on the fly during a Fox News appearance to justify his irresponsible decision to escalate the confrontation with Iran.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that when Trump, Esper and sundry Trump apologists talk about Iranian attacks on U.S. troops, they’re mostly talking about Iranian actions early in the Iraq War. The Obama administration had that threat contained with the JCPOA.

Trump tore up that agreement because he claimed he could get a “better deal.” Looks like that’s working out about as well as Trump’s other negotiations.

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Innocent, Helpless Victims

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Apparently this is the line we’re going to hear about Biden’s vote for Iraq:

Former Secretary of State John Kerry defended former Vice President Biden over the Iraq War, saying that the George W. Bush administration “broke their word with respect to how they would proceed” in Iraq.

“The fact is that we were promised by a president, by an administration, that they were going to do it as a last resort after exhausting diplomacy, that if they have to go to war it would be with a coalition that they built broadly, and that they would do it only in conjunction with our allies,” Kerry said Friday. “It didn’t have to happen; it was a war of choice.”

“It was a mistake to have trusted them, I guess, and we paid a high price for it,” Kerry added. “But that was not voting for the war.”

This is such a projection of weakness and, frankly, political cowardice – we trusted Bush and he let us down. A mistake “I guess”. Is that really where Biden wants to go with this? To say he’s a victim of Bush? Two thoughts:

First, if we’re supposed to trust your judgment as the biggest, baddest, smartest foreign policy guy, isn’t trusting Cheney/Bush on foreign policy a refutation of learning from your experience? We all know people who have worked in a job for a long time (“experienced”) and absolutely suck at it. It’s not the experiences you have, but how you’ve grown and learned from them. If you hadn’t learned that you can’t trust someone like Cheney/Bush not to go to war, and you haven’t learned that Iraq was the biggest foreign policy fuckup in the last two decades of this country’s existence–and that any role you played in it deserves apology rather than weak excuses like this– you’ve learned nothing.

Second, Iraq is such heavy baggage. If I had to point to one factor that sunk Clinton’s ’08 campaign, other than her advisors’ inability to count delegates, it was her Iraq vote in contrast to Obama’s position on the war. I also think it was a factor in Kerry’s ’04 loss, since he had to dance around his vote rather than have a simple, forthright position opposing the war. Instead of trotting out excuse makers, the Biden campaign needs to be working to dump that baggage with a short, sweet acknowledgement of error and failure.

All that said, there are some things about Iraq I don’t understand at a very fundamental level. I was never, ever for a war in Iraq after 9/11. I certainly supported the Afghanistan war, but Iraq was clearly an war of choice. It had nothing to do with the perpetrators of 9/11. It seemed just like the kind of overreaction that they were trying to bait us into, we fell for it, and any honest history will show that it was a waste of some of our best people and immense amounts of money.

So when the excuse making begins, I have no interest in or patience for it, because I thought it was an obvious mistake from the start. The fact that it was a popular mistake at the time, and that Cheney/Bush lied about it, holds absolutely no water. I don’t think I’m alone in that view, but I guess Biden wants to go to Kerrytown in a bucket. I’m afraid I’m not enjoying the ride.

(via LGM, worth a read)

Innocent, Helpless VictimsPost + Comments (295)

Bloomberg Reports That the “US Probes If Russia Targeting Biden in 2020 Election Meddling”: YA THINK?!?!?!!?!?!

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Today in water is wet reporting:

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are assessing whether Russia is trying to undermine Joe Biden in its ongoing disinformation efforts with the former vice president still the front-runner in the race to challenge President Donald Trump, according to two officials familiar with the matter.

The probe comes as senior U.S. officials are warning that Russia’s election interference in 2020 could be more brazen than in the 2016 presidential race or the 2018 midterm election.

Part of the inquiry is to determine whether Russia is trying to weaken Biden by promoting controversy over his past involvement in U.S. policy toward Ukraine while his son worked for an energy company there.

YA THINK?!?!?!?!

As I delineated way back in September when The New York Time‘s Ken Vogel was peddling his agitprop about Hunter Biden and Vice President Biden with a “I’m just asking questions here…” smirk, the Russians started this disinformation and agitprop based influence campaign against Vice President Biden in 2014. Because they thought that he was likely to run for president in 2016 and they were starting their campaign to dirty up every potential candidate tied to President Obama’s administration and that administration’s actions regarding Russia.

The RIA-Novosti, a Russian state backed news outlet, excerpt that Paula Chertok reported on back in May 2019 and posted above is from May 2014. It also includes allegations against Hunter Biden, Vice President Biden, and then Secretary of State Kerry’s step-son. There was informed speculation in 2014 that both Vice President Biden and Secretary Kerry were considering presidential runs in 2016. This initial piece of agitprop and disinformation, casually placed in a Russian state backed news media article, forms the basis for the Black PSYOP that I’ve delineated and written about here over the past several months. A disinformation and agitprop laundry that includes the Republican members of Congress, especially those involved in the impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives, members of the US Senate, and Rudy Giuliani’s OANN documentary.

There can be no doubt that Russia is not just continuing its political warfare campaign, as part of Putin’s undeclared war against the US, leveraging information warfare, cyber operations, and other active measures in 2020 to effect the 2020 campaign, but that the bullshit story about the Bidens and Ukraine is central to it. It is nice to see that both the news media and the US Intelligence Community are now focused on this reality, but it is unfortunate that they are late to the game.

Open thread!

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Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Democrats Refuse to Roll Over for MOAR WAR!!!

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Per the Washington Post:

… U.S. officials said Wednesday they knew Iranian missiles were coming hours in advance of the attack after warnings from intelligence sources and communications from Iraq. Iraq’s acting prime minister has said he was informed of the attack ahead of time.

“We knew, and the Iraqis told us, that this was coming many hours in advance,” said a senior U.S. administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the communications.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that the House will vote Thursday on a measure to limit Trump’s military actions regarding Iran. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said the classified briefing by Trump administration officials Wednesday was “probably the worst briefing I’ve seen at least on a military issue in the nine years I’ve served in the United States Senate.”…

Even the GOP’s dynamic duo was unpleased with Pompeo…

ETA:

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The Orange Oaf Speaks…

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The orange oaf is scheduled to waddle forth to address the nation at 11 AM ET. Post reporter Josh Dawsey says on Twitter: “Several aides say Trump is not looking to escalate further with Iran with this morning’s speech.” Well, that’s good?

I predict Trump will be extra snorty and insufferably braggy — really going out on a limb here!

Anyhoo, open  thread.

The Orange Oaf Speaks…Post + Comments (234)

Iran Fires On US Airbase

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Things are still happening. Here’s a selection of tweets.

I’ll add more in the comments as they show up.

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The Levantine Problem Set: Some Light(ish) Reading

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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!

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Sunday, Nutty Sunday

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In the wee hours this morning, Trump tweeted more bellicose nonsense about Iran as a follow-up to the war crimes threats he made earlier yesterday:

Sunday Nutty Sunday

[Note: I assume the “Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment” thing is a lie.]

Today in Iraq, the parliament voted to boot the U.S. out. Also, CNN interviewed Iran’s top military adviser, and he sounds a whole lot more rational than Trump:

In an exclusive interview with CNN in Tehran, the adviser — Maj. Gen. Hossein Dehghan — made the most specific and direct threat yet by a senior Iranian official following the killing of Gen. Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad.

Dehghan said Iran would retaliate directly against US “military sites.”

Nice touch to specify that Iran would target “military sites” to create a contrast with Trump. Way to seize the moral high ground, general.

And moments ago, a cherry to top off the shit sundae: Iran announced it would suspend all commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal. Given that they’re dealing with an unhinged lunatic, can you blame them?

Will our allies stick with us? Pompeo unhelpfully crapped on them for not clapping hard enough about the Soleimani assassination, and Trump has been shitting on our friends for three years, so I’m skeptical.

Oh well. Open thread.

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Iran’s Response: Unconventional and Most Likely Embarrassing

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Cole muses:

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!

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How to Stop a War

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Our Commander-in-Chief:

President Trump told reporters Friday that the United States had killed Qasem Soleimani, one of Iran’s top military figures, in a bid to “stop a war.” The president, speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, urged Iran not to retaliate.

“We did not take action to start a war,” he said.

So it goes something like this, see if I’m paying attention:

  1. Kill top general of the opposition forces.
  2. ?????
  3. War stopped. QED

Other thoughts in the same vein:

  • “I didn’t go running in traffic to get hit by a car, but to cross the street.”
  • “I didn’t have unprotected sex to get pregnant, but to have some fun.”

Open thread.

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Say Hello to the New Boss

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Apparently Qasem Soleimani was a key leader in the Iranian military:

As leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, the 62-year-old bore responsibility for Iran’s clandestine operations abroad, quietly extending the military reach of Iran deep into foreign conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq.

In the process, he earned himself near-mythical status among his enemies and idolization by his Iranian hard-line supporters.

Analysts have complained that Soleimani had more diplomatic clout than Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and pondered whether he would eventually seek top political office. Some compared him to Karla, the fanatical, but fictional, Soviet spymaster in John le Carré’s Cold War novels.

Killing him was a major provocation, and certainly it will have some effect on the morale and capabilities of the Quds Force, but is it going to have any long-term effect? My guess is that it won’t, for two reasons. First, military and paramilitary organizations are designed to be resilient to loss of command since one of the major risks of war is, obviously, death. Second, the command structure of any quality military organization is going to be full of ambitious and talented officers who are capable of taking the place of the top leader.

In other words, there are half a dozen Karlas waiting in the wings to replace this guy. The history of this endless war is replete with the killing of some #1 or other that probably causes some short-term chaos, but changes very little in the long run. I think part of the reason that the US is constantly “decapitating” enemies is that we can do it with precision airstrikes rather than a commitment of ground troops, so it is a relatively easy gesture that shows we’re “doing something”.

Well, now we did something. As much as Trump, Pompeo and the rest want to do more, that next steps are a hell of a lot more militarily and politically risky than a targeted airstrike.

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Who’s the rogue state now?

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Senator Chris Murphy assesses the situation:

I don’t know much about Iran, except that the country is a horrifying theocracy (as is Saudi Arabia). I don’t know what they’re likely to do in response to the U.S. assassination of the Iranian general. But if they’re smart, the Iranians will use Trump’s reputation as a belligerent idiot to paint the U.S. as a rogue state, undermine any remaining support for sanctions and strike trade deals.

Iran has vowed “harsh revenge,” and people are understandably spooked by the prospect of terrorist attacks and the U.S. being drawn into a wider conflict, with proxies joining the melee. Maybe the Iranians really mean it.

But while we know we in the U.S. don’t have rational leadership at the moment, the question is: does Iran?

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Breaking: The US Has Struck Against the Iranian Militia In Iraq Killing Both Ktaib Hezbullah’s Leader and Quds Force Commanding General Qassem Suleimani

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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.

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!

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The Assault on US Embassy Baghdad Has Ended. For Now…

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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.

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:

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!

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