Teddy Roosevelt would have been proud.
Since Donald Trump took office in January, U.S. officials have been quietly warning the Iraqi government and Iran-backed militias in Iraq that unless the militias disarmed, America would target the militias with airstrikes.
There have been whispers of this effort by the U.S. to disarm Iran-backed militias for several months. The warnings by America may be getting louder and more specific.
Ten senior commanders, including six Iraqi army and four militia commanders, told Reuters of the warnings.
"The factions are not acting stubbornly or insisting on continuing in their current form," said Izzat al-Shahbndar, a senior Shi'ite Muslim politician. He added that the groups were "fully aware" they have a bullseye on their backs.
The militia commanders talking to Reuters include some of the largest militias, including Kataib Hezbollah, the militia responsible for the death of two American soldiers when they attacked a base north of Baghdad. The other militias talking to Reuters were Nujabaa, Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada, and Ansarullah al-Awfiyaa groups.
"Trump is ready to take the war with us to worse levels, we know that, and we want to avoid such a bad scenario," said a commander of Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful Shi'ite militia.
The militia commanders told the wire service that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had told them to take whatever measures necessary to avoid conflict with the U.S. and Israel.
Recall that Iran recently skedaddled from Yemen as the U.S. bombing campaign against the Houthis continues unabated. Now, it appears that the Iranians are leaving their fifty-thousand-strong militias to wither and die on the vine.
The strong words from the U.S. appear to have given the Iranian puppets in Baghdad a little backbone. They now claim that they want all weapons in the country under state control. Of course, it's one thing to declare something and another thing to actually have it happen. Just ask the government in Lebanon, which has been trying to disarm Hezbollah for 30 years.
The militias are part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of about 10 hardline Shi'ite armed factions that collectively command about 50,000 fighters and arsenals that include long-range missiles and anti-aircraft weapons, according to two security officials who monitor militias' activities.
The Resistance group, a key pillar of Iran's network of regional proxy forces, have claimed responsibility for dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel and U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since the Gaza war erupted about 18 months ago.
Farhad Alaaeldin, Sudani's foreign affair adviser, told Reuters in response to queries about disarmament talks that the prime minister was committed to ensuring all weapons in Iraq were under state control through "constructive dialogue with various national actors".
The two Iraqi security officials said Sudani was pressing for disarmament from all the militias of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which declare their allegiance to Iran's IRGC or Quds Force rather than to Baghdad.
As a foot soldier in the protests against the Vietnam War, I can recall the "Domino Theory" spouted by Lyndon Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, and the entire military establishment, who warned that if Vietnam fell to the Communists, other Southeast Asia nations would follow soon after.
Some nations like Cambodia and Laos did, indeed, become Marxist-Leninists. Other Southeast Asian nations like Thailand did not. Now we have a real domino scenario as terrorist groups instead of nations are being systematically dismantled.
Some groups have already largely evacuated their headquarters and reduced their presences in major cities including Mosul and Anbar since mid-January for fear of being hit by air attacks, according to officials and commanders.
Many commanders have also stepped up their security measures in that time, changing their mobile phones, vehicles and abodes more frequently, they said.
The U.S. State Department said it continued to urge Baghdad to rein in the militias. "These forces must respond to Iraq's commander-in-chief and not to Iran," it added.
Iraq, like Lebanon, is torn between two competing power centers. In Lebanon, it's Hezbollah that has dominated politics for three decades while the elected government cowers. In Iraq, it's Iran that essentially controls the economic and foreign policy of the nation, while the national government is also trying to be some sort of ally with America.
The U.S. has about 2,000 troops in Iraq, and more importantly, Iraq is an intelligence base from which to keep an eye on Middle Eastern bad boys. I doubt very much if the Iraqi government can rein in the militias in any meaningful way. This is why we can expect Trump to remind them what the U.S. is capable of doing when the militias dare to say "no."
