1.8.20 / IRAQ REAX
SCORING - AMBIENT ADVENTURES
<CLIPS>
PBS: As we come on the air tonight, we have breaking news. Iran's Revolutionary Guard says that it has launched ballistic missiles in the direction of American air bases in Iraq where U.S. troops are stationed.
BBC: Iranian state television says the attack was launched in revenge for the U.S. assassination of the Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani.
ABC: The missiles fired tonight, part of what Iran is now calling Operation Martyr Soleimani.
BBC: Missiles launched from inside Iran struck two air bases in Erbil and al-Asad, just west of Baghdad.
ABC: We have learned what are the bases targeting al-Asad air base in western Iraq and Anbar. President Trump and the first lady visited a little more than a year ago in the summer of 2018.
SCORING OUT
SEAN: Jenn Williams, Vox, how much damage did these missiles do last night?
JENN WILLIAMS (Sr. Foreign Editor): So we don't yet know the damage to the facilities themselves. The U.S. military and the Iraqis are still kind of figuring that out and they haven't really made anything clear on that. But we do know about casualties. And according to NATO forces who are part of the, you know, coalition that's involved there with the U.S., according to the U.S. and according to the Iraqi prime minister, there were no casualties among any of the U.S. troops, any of the Iraqi forces who were there or any of the international forces.
SEAN: Is it still a big deal that Iran chose to launch these ballistic missiles?
JENN: The fact that they decided to fire ballistic missiles from Iran is a very important point—
SEAN: As opposed to…
JENN: As opposed to using their proxy groups. These like Shia militia groups that are backed by Iran inside Iraq. They typically do it that way. They will have these groups fire rockets toward, you know, U.S. facilities or Iraqi facilities. And that kind of creates a level of plausible deniability, right? ‘We didn't do it. It was just these groups over there. We have nothing to do with them.’ But this was a very clear message. It was, ‘We are sending these from Iran. They are directly targeting U.S. facilities. And we are very clear that we are very angry about the killing of customs with the money and we're making no bones about it.’
SEAN: And the Iranian government has issued statements about this attack. What are they explicitly saying?
JENN: They are saying that this is a proportionate response for the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian senior military commander that the U.S. assassinated. They are saying that this is a concluded response. So Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said, you know, we executed this attack, but we have concluded it. So they are very strongly signaling that this was our response. We had to respond and they, they did. The Iranians basically had no choice but to respond to the killing of such a high-level military commander. But they're also saying, ‘look, we're doing this big show of force, but we are stopping at the light of actually killing any Americans or any Iraqis for that matter.’
SEAN: The United States killed Iran's, like, foremost military leader, and their revenge was peppering some bombs with mixed results that killed nobody. Not that this is like death toll for death toll. But was this, sort of, a more hesitant response from Iran?
JENN: Iran definitely could have done a lot more and they chose not to. They have a lot of ways that they can strike against Americans and American allies in the region, including Israel, and they threatened to do so. Last night, while we were watching this unfold, they were issuing all kinds of threats, saying if the U.S. responds again, then, you know, we could potentially launch a terrorist attack inside the United States, which they could theoretically do.
SEAN: Hmm.
JENN: They were saying, you know, we could attack targets in Israel. They specifically named the city of Haifa. They also said they could attack Dubai. But they chose not to.
SEAN: How did President Trump react?
JENN: So somewhat surprisingly last night, he reacted fairly positively...
SEAN: Lots of exclamation points, right?
JENN: Yeah. He tweeted, quote, “All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq.” And you wouldn't think those two statements would really go together. All is well. Iran just fired missiles at us, but he said later in the tweet. “So far, so good.” And bragged about having the most powerful military. But in that tweet last night, he also said, I'll be making a statement tomorrow morning. And he did today a little bit after 11 o’clock from the White House.
<CLIP> AMBI
JENN: So he walked out to the podium. He's flanked by all of his top generals, the military brass and Mike Pence looking very somber. And he walked right out to the microphone and said...
<CLIP> PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: As long as I'm president of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Good morning.
JENN: He said that first.
SEAN: Quite a preface.
JENN: It was very odd. It was kind of important to what he was going to get into later on, but there were three main points that really stood out to me from Trump's speech. The first is that he made it very clear that there's not going to be any big U.S. military response to Iran's attacks last night.
<CLIP> PRESIDENT TRUMP: Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.
JENN: He was very clear in saying ‘this ends here in terms of the big military fight.’ However, he did say some other things that could be taken as escalation at a little bit lower level.
<CLIP> PRESIDENT TRUMP: The United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes its behavior.
JENN: That is not de-escalation. That is escalation. He is putting even more sanctions on Iran. And then he addressed the nuclear deal. It's called the JCPOA, that joint comprehensive plan of action. The U.S. withdrew from that deal already, but other countries still remain in it, including the U.K., Germany, France, Russia, China. And...
<CLIP> PRESIDENT TRUMP: They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal who are JCPOA.
JENN: And that's really important because under that deal, those countries, plus the United States and we are still in the deal, basically agreed to lift economic sanctions and give Iran economic benefits in exchange for them putting curbs on their nuclear program. So essentially calling on those countries to like reimpose sanctions, stop doing business, any business with Iran, and go back to much more hardcore like economic pressure against Iran. So, again, in that case, not de escalatory quite the opposite.
SEAN: You've been waiting, you know, for 12 hours for the president's remarks here. What was your major takeaway from what he said?
JENN: So the big takeaway is that everyone can breathe a sigh of relief for now that the big, scary bombing each other conflict between U.S. and Iran is probably dying down for now. However, one thing you need to understand about Iran is that when they do responses like this, they will tend to do a big response like we saw last night.
SEAN: Something showy.
JENN: Right. But then they will do things that are a lot lower-level kind of over the course of time. So we could see things like a cyber attack, other kind of lower level fighting or attacks from those proxies that we're used to seeing, those kinds of things, rocket attacks from proxy groups in Iraq and other places, potentially targeting of U.S. troops or U.S. allies in other places like Syria, Yemen and other places like that. So while I think there could be a second wave of attacks—they definitely threatened that—so far, they seem to be signaling very clearly that none of that will happen unless the U.S. escalates in return. But we could continue to see the kind of low level tit-for-tat kind of violence and kind of shadow war between the U.S. and Iran likely continue for a long time to come.
SEAN: So if Trump's strategy here was to take out a major opposition figure to the United States and face no real consequences, did he just win?
JENN: I think it's too soon to tell. Honestly, if this is where it ends, then you could probably say that, yeah. That, you know, we took out this very dangerous figure who is responsible for the deaths of a lot of Americans and Iraqis, by the way, with few consequences, with no American casualties, no Iraqi casualties. But this isn't over yet. And at the bare minimum, this certainly escalated things to a very dangerous level.
SEAN: So there was no death toll in these missile attacks that Iran launched last night. But overnight, something like 170 people did die in Iran in this plane crash in Tehran. Did that have anything to do with this?
JENN: So this Boeing flight that was headed from Tehran to Kiev, Ukraine, crashed pretty shortly after takeoff inside Iran. So far, it doesn't look like it had anything to do with the U.S. Iran fight. It's still too early to tell. They are still investigating. The Ukrainian government initially came out and said there was, you know, no sign of terrorism or any other like missiles or anything like that. But they then took that statement down and are now saying, you know, we're it's under investigation. It looks like there was probably some kind of maybe a fire, engine failure, that happened shortly after takeoff. So, in other words, like a mechanical failure. But it's too soon to tell. And obviously, just given the timing, there's a lot of speculation and a lot of kind, conspiracy theory out there, that this has something to do with it. It's certainly possible. But as of right now, it doesn't seem like that's probably the case.
SEAN: Apart from this plane crash, all these incidents have taken place in Iraq, the killing of Soleimani. These missile attacks last night. How does Iraq feel about this beef between Iran and the United States playing out on its soil?
JENN: Not great.
SCORING - WORMHOLE CHAMBER
JENN: Iraq is coming up on two decades of war being fought on its soil from the Iraq War to the fight against ISIS. And they're really caught in a tough place between two allies, the Americans and the Iranians.
SCORING BUMP
SEAN: More in a minute.
[MIDROLL]
SEAN: Jenn, a thing I've been wondering for the past week or so—did either country ask permission to carry out these attacks on Iraqi soil?
JENN: It sure doesn't look like it. If you look at the Iraqi response to the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, their response was to basically ask U.S. troops to get out.
SEAN: Right.
JENN: So that's not really a response you would expect if they knew that was going to happen and, you know, gave it gave it the green light.
SEAN: And Iran?
JENN: Same thing. The missiles that Iran fired hit an Iraqi air base. It houses U.S. forces, but it is an Iraqi air base where Iraqi forces were stationed at the time.
SEAN: You can't really ask permission to, like, mess with someone’s house..
JENN: Do you mind if we fire missiles at your base and your soldiers?
SEAN: Yeah.
JENN: You know, if they did greenlight that, that's going to be a huge controversy because Iraqi lives were literally threatened by that attack. Thank God no one was killed, but they very well could have been.
SEAN: So what position is Iraq in right now? Two of its “friends” just came over, made a huge mess of their place, and then kinda walked away?
JENN: Yes, they are definitely in a terrible position right now and they know it.
SCORING IN - UNLOCKING
JENN: This is a bit of an extension of what we saw during the Iraq War when the U.S. and Iran were battling out for control of of Iraq, and who gets to be the big influence in the new Iraq they were building this is a bit of an extension of that. But things are really different now. Iran has way more control and influence inside the Iraqi government than really ever before. And the U.S. has pretty much the least amount of control and influence in Iraq than it has for a very long time. So Iraq has to be careful because the government is very closely aligned with Iran in a lot of ways. But the people of Iraq, not so much. So you may remember that just recently there were these really big protests going on in Iraq.
SEAN: Totally.
JENN: And those protests were about, in large part, getting Iranian influence out of Iraq. And that's something that a lot of Iraqi people—Sunni, Shia, across the board, nonsectarian—are really tired of having foreign countries, Iran or the U.S., trying to run their country. They're like, look, can we just get our country back and could all of you get out and stop fighting on our soil? And so that was going on and then we had these attacks.
SCORING OUT - UNLOCKING
JENN: But this complicates that in some ways, because, you know, now there's this bigger conflict going on and it's like, do protesters still feel safe coming out and protesting against this? Does it change their calculation about, you know, which side they're on? Is it like, ‘Oh, we want the Americans back because we don't want Iran?’ You know, is it more of, like, a patriotism thing? We're like, ‘Don't attack us. We want everyone out.’ Or do they, you know, pick one side or the other? And there's also the fact that just because of this violence going on, there could very well be a move by the Iraqi government to kind of clamp down on everything and just keep everything under control domestically, which could make it harder for people to come out and protest.
SEAN: Hmm.
JENN: So that protest movement that was a very nationalistic Iraqi kind of protest, a lot of young people, but really across the spectrum has essentially been co-opted by this broader conflict. Which, once again, means the Iraqi people and their aspirations are being subsumed for this broader kind of regional conflict that's going on.
SEAN: Hm. Have there been any protests since the U.S. killed Soleimani on Iraqi soil?
JENN: Yeah. There were protests in both Iraq and Iran against the killing of Qassem Soleimani.
<CLIP> IRAQI PROTESTER: (In Arabic) Death to America! Death to Israel!
JENN: But there weren't the protests that we were usually seeing, right? This like anti-Iran, anti-U.S., anti-foreign intervention thing. This was a very specific against the killing of Soleimani.
SEAN: But the Soleimani assassinaton and the Iranian retaliation didn’t happen in Iran or in Idaho. It all happened in Iraq. What are Iraqis saying about that?!
JENN: I mean, a lot of people are talking on social media and saying, you know, once again, the Iraqi people are caught up in this conflict that has nothing to do with us, really. And this, in particular, doesn't really have anything to do with the Iraqi people themselves. And a lot of people are also just really angry that it doesn't seem like people really care what is happening to Iraqis or the fact that this is happening in Iraq. If you see a lot of the statements that came out from U.S. politicians, people were saying, you know, prayers go out to the U.S. troops and soldiers in Iraq who are under attack. But there was like nothing about the Iraqis who are also literally under attack. And yeah, they should say that they're American politicians, but like there are Iraqis who are literally there right next to Americans. It would be cool if people remembered that.
SEAN: Mmm. What has the U.S. said about this nonbinding resolution that Iraq passed over the weekend that says you've got to get the troops out? How is that developed over the week?
JENN: Uh, can I say “clusterfuck?”
SEAN: Yes.
JENN: Uh, the word I would use is “clusterfuck.”
SCORING IN - THE CHILLS
JENN: What happened is there was this letter from basically the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq that was sent to the Iraqi government, basically saying, ‘We recognize your sovereignty and in response to your request that U.S. troops leave, we are going to start, you know, moving troops to get ready to move out and move on.
<CLIP> NBC NEWS: Tonight, the Pentagon is scrambling to clarify U.S. troop deployments after what it says was a leaked draft of a memo sent to the Iraqis.
JENN: And then the secretary of defense, Mark Esper, completely contradicted that just like a few minutes later when asked at the Pentagon by reporters. And he's like, “No…..”
<CLIP> NBC NEWS: But then Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters there's been no decision whatsoever to leave Iraq.
JENN: ‘There's no change to our force posture,’ which is just a wonky way of saying we're not moving our troops at all. And there was all this confusion. We're like, ‘Well, what about this letter?’ And then they were like, ‘No, there's no letter. That's not happening.’ And then a few minutes later, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, comes walking back to the press room and says, ‘Oh, about that letter. Uhh.. that was a mistake. It was a draft.
<CLIP> PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I don't know anything about that letter. The letter was sent and I understand it was an unsigned letter so I could maybe let Mike speak to it. I don't know if that letter was a hoax or was it?
JENN: But the Iraqis got the letter and they certainly think it's real. And according to them, they're like, you just told us you're leaving. So there's this huge mess. We still don't really know what's going on. The administration is still saying, no, we're not leaving. But they clearly drafted this letter that said we are leaving. So there's something in the works, obviously. So it's really confusing. But bottom line, as of right now, it seems like U.S. troops are not leaving—yet.
SCORING OUT - THE CHILLS
SEAN: And it's just been a terrible week for Iraqi sovereignty.
JENN: Absolutely.
SEAN: What's it going to take for Iraq's government, or the country, or the people to give these other countries an impression that Iraq is in a country that you can just trample over?
JENN: It's a really good question. There has been a very serious swell in protest, but it's going to take something on a much broader scale than what we've seen so far. Even though we've seen massive protests. We're talking revolution style to kick out these people. And Iran has a lot of power and it has years of influence inside Iraq and not just in the government, but in religious institutions and in these militia groups like their fingers are all over Iraq. And it's really hard to disentangle that just overnight.
SEAN: Jenn Williams is one of the hosts of Worldly. That’s a podcast from Vox.
I’m Sean Rameswaram. This is Today, Explained from Vox.
And you’ve heard Reset from Vox? On today’s show, they’re talking about Iran as a cybersecurity threat to the United States.
And how the United States sort of inspired Iran to invest in cyber-warfare capabilities in the first place.
That’s on Reset. From Vox.
Vox: we make podcasts, okay?
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