U.S. President Donald Trump ordered attacks on Kataib Hezbollah weapons’ storage facilities March 14, responding to the attack on Iraq’s Camp Taji, killing two U.S. soldiers and one British marine. Trump said he reserved the right to respond to aggression against U.S. or allied targets, putting Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah on notice that the U.S. will respond on its own terms. Iraq’s Joint Operation Command acknowledged that American air strikes killed three soldiers, two policemen and one civilian. Pentagon didn’t target Iraq’s military or police, showing the dangers of precision-guided missiles sometimes going astray, creating collateral damage. Trump finds himself caught between-a-rock-and-a-hard place, having to respond but, at the same time, knowing that he’s doing nothing to stop Iran’s state-sponsored terrorism. Kataib Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy.
Trump faces tough choices going forward while he tries to win his bid for reelection. Without going after Ayatollah’s Mullah regime, he knows that Iran’s surrogates will continue attacking U.S. and its allies. Kataib Hezbollah’s 63-year-old leader Abu Mahid al-Muhandris was assassinated Jan. 2 with Iran’s Al Quds’ chief Qassem Soleimani. Iran retaliated hitting Iraq’s Ain al-Assad airbase Jan. 8, injuring over 100 U.S. soldiers with concussive brain injuries. Trump decided to not respond, prompting Iran to plan the latest attack on U.S. and its allies. So far, Iran has been spared military action, despite paying and planning attacks on U.S. soldiers. “We condemn American aggression against our security forces and we would like to tell the Americans to leave our country, those are our dear sons. You are occupiers and you kill our sons. This act is rejected and unacceptable,” said an unnamed mourner.
Iraq’s citizens forget when Abu Bakr al-Baghadi and his Islamic Sttate of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], seized 33% of Iraq’s sovereign territory in 2014, stealing its oil fields in Mosul and Kirkuk. It took years of U.S. blood-and-treasure to finally rid Mosul of al-Bagdadi’s caliphate. No one complained then when Pentagon spent billions and sacrificed its native sons to restore Iraqi sovereignty. With the help of Kurdish Iraqi Democratic Forces ISIS was finally ousted from Mosul July 9, 2017, attesting to the difficult fight to liberate Iraq. Iran’s collateral damage is the price paid when Iranian-backed Shiite terror groups attack U.S. troops. Trump can’t continue the tit-for-tat attacks with any measure of success, without going directly after Iran. Iran’s 80-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei won’t get the message until Trump goes after his Mullah regime.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] leader Hossein Salami often threatens the U.S. and its allies. “We have the power to break them several times over and are not worried,” Salami said after the Jan. 2 predator drone attack that killed Soleimain and al-Muhandris. Salami didn’t waste time before picking on his favorites target, Israel. “Take a good look at the sea because that is where your final place of residence will be. I’m referring to the Mediterranean Sea,” Salami said. Salamic leads Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC], often making threats against the U.S. and Israel. So far, Trump has confined his response to surrogates like Kataib Hezbollah. When the Kataib Hezbollah hit the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone Jan. 27, the U.S. didn’t respond, allowing the Iranian-backed militias to strike U.S. forces at Iraq’s Camp Taji and other targets.
Attacks from Kataib Hezbollah or other Iranian-backed Shiite militias won’t stop until Trump hits Iran where it hurts, its oil refineries. Already crippled by new U.S. sanctions driving the Iranian Rial currency to its lowest levels ever, Iran’s economy is in a deep depression. Iran’s mullah regime has no problem taking out their failed state on the Iranian people. Trump knows that the sanctions punish the Iranian people more than Ayatollah’s elite cult of mullah bureaucrats. When anti-regime protests break out around the country, the Ayatollah commissions Salami and his Basij militia to attack Iran’s citizens. Many Iranians still recall life under Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, where Islamic law was not used as a bludgeon against the people. Ayatollah’s Iran operates like other Fascist or totalitarian regimes, destroying the free press to control the population with unending propaganda.
Trump faces tough choices with Iran, especially dealing with his reelection and a spiraling viral epidemic threatening to kill thousands of citizens, driving the U.S. economy into recession. Given Trump’s choices, he cannot ignore blatant Iranian aggression, using surrogates in Iraq and Syria to harm U.S. and its allies. Trump has come to a fork in the road with Iraq, where appeasement won’t stop Iran from continuing to prosecute its proxy war against Saudi Arabia and Israel. When Iran attacked oil tankers in the Persian Gulf last summer and flew missiles into Saudi Arabia’s main oil refinery, the Ayatollah’s mullah regime had gone rogue. Only by hitting Iran’s oil refining capacity can Trump stop Ayatollah Khamenei from carrying out his ongoing state-sponsored terrorism. Confining the U.S. response to hitting Iran’s proxies does nothing to stop its aggression.
