Between five and 12 missiles landed on and around the U.S. embassy currently under construction in Erbil (also spelled Irbil), the capital city of the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, early Sunday.
U.S. and Iraqi officials are reporting no known significant damage or casualties. Iran has claimed responsibility for the attack, describing it as retaliation for a recent Israeli strike in Syria that killed two Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen.
Perhaps Iran’s missiles weren’t capable of reaching Israel, so an American embassy in Iraq was the next best thing? On its website, the revolutionary Guard claimed to have attacked an Israeli “strategic center of conspiracy,” according to AP reporter Qassim Abdul-Zahra.
Video purporting to show the bombardment of the sprawling American compound is being shared on social media.
NOW – Multiple long-range ballistic missiles fired at US consulate in Erbil, Iraq, Sky News Arabia reports.pic.twitter.com/N5VlVlkIJl
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 12, 2022
The Epoch Times reports that the attack may also be retaliation for the neutralization of Qassem Soleimani, then-head of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force (IRGC-QF) by the United States on Jan. 7, 2020.
Fars News Agency, which is managed by the IRGC of Iran’s Islamist regime, appeared to link the missile attack to the killing of Soleimani.
📹 ساعت ۱:۲۰ دقیقه بامداد، زمان برخورد موشکها به پایگاه اسرائیلی-آمریکایی در اربیل
🔹 صابریننیوز: [این زمان] به هیچوجه تصادفی نیست!https://t.co/8vwsugch23 pic.twitter.com/lao4V0r7aM
— فارس بینالملل (@FarsNewsInt) March 13, 2022
“Missiles hit the ‘Israeli-American’ bases at 01:20 local time; ‘that’s not a coincidence’. IRGC-QF chief Soleimani was killed in #Iraq on 7Jan20—01:20 Iraq time. #Iran,” Fars News wrote in a Twitter post, per a translation via journalist Khosro Kalbasi.
Soleimani’s birthday was March 11, and a 2020 retaliatory attack also occurred at 1:20 a.m.
While I’m sure the Iranian Guard included some symbolic numerology in their latest attack, as they do, it’s hard to miss the even more significant aspect of the timing. Namely, the Iran nuclear agreement the Biden Collective has been so eager to complete seems to be falling apart.
Related: Iran Nuclear Talks Near Collapse as Russia Demands Protection From Sanctions
With Tehran making more demands all the time and Moscow apparently in on the negotiations, the deal has been heading for the rocks for a while now. Then, on Thursday, a majority-Democrat group of 21 members of Congress sent President Biden a letter, saying they were probably not going to support the deal. The sticking point was the Biden Collective’s reported consideration of lifting anti-terror sanctions that target Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The New York Post reported on Thursday:
“We will review any agreement closely, but from what we currently understand, it is hard to envision supporting an agreement along the lines being publicly discussed,” [the lawmakers] wrote, noting that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had told Congress he would keep the terrorism sanctions in place.
“As the State Department has often noted in reference to a nuclear agreement with Iran, ‘Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.’ We hope that no agreement is finalized without additionally addressing these concerns,” the lawmakers added.
The reps also indicated concern about the precise nuclear conditions that would be placed on Iran and whether Russia would come out of the agreement with economic advantages. Moscow had earlier hampered the negotiations in Vienna by demanding American guarantees that Iran would not be sanctioned from buying Russian goods.
In light of these developments, does the missile strike indicate Iran is throwing in the towel on making a nuclear deal with the United States? After all, if you’re asking not to be designated as terrorists, is bombing your negotiating partner’s embassy the right move? And considering our current leadership and their willingness to sell out America in the name of globalism and prestige, is the death of the Iran nuclear deal even a bad thing?
We await word from our fearless leaders in the White House with bated breath.
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