Context - Iran in Iraq, and us: QMN075
Martial Mental Models: The Quartermaster Newsletter, Monday, 6 January
(This week’s report is a 7 minute read)
BLUF: There’s a lot of uncertainty about what’s going to happen next in the US’s confrontation with Iran in Iraq. That uncertainty will continue, but in the meantime you can dig a little deeper into the history of Quds Force and the US’s involvement with a complex, far-reaching and deadly organization. You might come out the other end realizing that this conflict has been going on a long time, and simply got escalated significantly on January 3rd.
Brady here. Given the events of the past few days, it's a good idea to review the context of the US's situation with Iran and all the other associated groups involved in Iraq today. There's a lot swirling around out there that's hype designed to get clicks (crazy, I know) and if KS and I are being responsible, we'll use a few minutes today to provide you with some context you didn't already have.
In a real small nutshell, the US forces still operating in Iraq - reported to be as few as 5,000 in number - have been under attack by Kata'ib Hezbollah (a Shia militia under the control of Iran) under the direction of Iran’s Quds Force for the past few months. There’d been a reported 11 different attacks by Kata'ib Hezbollah on US forces since October, and on 27 December, Kata'ib Hezbollah launched a rocket attack on the US base in Kirkuk, killing one contractor and wounding 4 American servicemembers and 2 Iraqis. The US responded by striking Kata'ib Hezbollah locations in Iraq and Syria two days later, reportedly killing 25 and wounding 55. Shortly thereafter on 31 December, Kata'ib Hezbollah and other PMF forces attempted to breach the gates of the US Embassy in Baghdad during a mob attack, and made it through the initial security checkpoints and within 200 meters of the main embassy building and set fire to buildings along the outer wall of the embassy complex. On 3 January, Qassem Solemeini arrived via jet at Baghdad International Airport, meeting with Kata'ib Hezbollah’s commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Both were killed by a US drone strike as they were departing the airfield.
First, who was Qassem Solemeini? Lieutentant General Solemeini was an Iranian military commander considered by many to be the second most powerful man in Iran. He undisputedly controlled all Iranian forces in Iraq and Syria, and many considered him also in charge of all diplomacy relating to both areas. For details, Dexter Filkins’s profile of him in The New Yorker six years ago is about as good as you're going to get right now.
But in examining the organization he led is where things get muddled. Quds Force is a unique organization that doesn't have many single peers in the world regarding mission or capability. Created during the Iran–Iraq War as a special unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), it includes a rare form of what Green Berets often call "teaching SOF" - who, like Green Berets, have the mission to train, advise and assist foreign militaries. In Quds Force's case this means it trains, advises and leads forces that are allied with Iran, and have included Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, Ansar Allah (Yemeni Houthis), and three Iraqi Shia militias that comprise the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) (these include Kata'ib Hezbollah, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada). For this reason, Quds Force has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, Egypt, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. At this point in history, many believe that Quds Force doesn't just advise Hezbollah - it is Hezbollah - meaning that it controls its actions almost indefinitely. So the US didn’t just kill a senior leader of the Iranian state - it killed the leader of one of the most wide-reaching and capable terrorist organizations in the world.
So what - what does this mean to us? If you've been a member of the US military in the past 20 years you may have already had at least one friend injured or killed by Quds Force efforts. Starting in 2004, Quds Force provided Iraqi insurgents with explosively formed penetrator explosives and training on how to use them against Americans - something they'd tested and proven against Israeli forces in Lebanon as early as 1997. Quds Force efforts at attacking Americans got so bad by 2007 that according to another article in The New Yorker, US forces began to consider steps like attacking Iran directly to deal with the threat. What happens next? Truthfully, there’s still a lot we don’t know about what’s been going on out of public view. At a minimum I’d expect at least some new maritime confrontations in the Strait of Hormuz, potentially disrupting the international oil market. US forces will continue to get rocketed in Iraq - but that’s nothing new. If Quds Force is operating at the full extent of its powers, I would expect terror attacks from proxies like Hezbollah, which could occur anywhere in the world. Since it’s formation in the early 1980s, Hezbollah’s executed terror attacks all over the world from the Middle East to London and South America. In 1994, Hezbollah members bombed a Jewish Center in Buenos Aires killing 85 and wounding hundreds. It’s reach is far, and it’s very capable.
One thing I still find interesting days later is the fact that Solemeini flew to a spot just 20 minutes drive from where his forces were leading a series of attacks on a US Embassy - that's not something you ever see from a senior leader of a large nation. It serves as a reminder to me that there’s a lot of information we - meaning mostly passive consumers of western news media - don't have about everything that's going on. The best thing to do, I think, is to take a measured view of all the news that comes out and remember that you don’t have all the info and likely won’t for a long time. The better to get informed on historical context in order to make sense of your world. (BJM)
*****
VETERANS COVERED BY A VETERAN: Meet the Military Vets Providing the Big Muscle for Big Tech (19 min) “Some eighteen months later, a piece of that acceleration walks the sun-splashed, tranquil campus of Big Tech Firm, waving, smiling, observing. Combat veteran Mike Rios, thirty-four, proud south Texas native and formerly of the United States Army infantry, is making the rounds, checking on his teams. He seems to know everyone—the software engineers, the sales managers, the vendors. Most smile and wave back in recognition. All part around Rios’s stocky frame like shadows under a flashlight. “What can I say?” he says, grinning. “Winning hearts and minds.” Rios works for Surefox Consulting, a physical-risk-management firm—protection for hire—that’s part of Big Tech Firm’s multilayered security apparatus. There’s in-house security and other private security firms, all tasked with different roles and responsibilities. This is standard fare in a world shaped by Darwinian hypercompetition and mass contracting. Surefox’s niche is “incident command,” a nice way of saying it handles the emergencies. Its pitch is straightforward and convincing: Of the 271 people in the company’s full- or part-time employ, approximately 90 percent are military veterans. At a time when suicide and unemployment numbers among veterans remain stubbornly high, especially among those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Surefox holds particular appeal to a community that worships disruption.” (BJM)
TAKING STOCK: The Decade of Disillusionment (6 min) “And that shadow feels deeper, in a way, because of the stability with which this essay opened. The 2010s were filled with angst and paranoia, they pushed people toward radicalism and reaction — but they didn’t generate very much effective social and political activity, beyond the populist middle finger and the progressive Twitter mob. They exposed the depth of problems without suggesting plausible solutions, and they didn’t produce movements or leaders equipped to translate disillusionment into programmatic action, despair into spiritual renewal, the crisis of institutions into structural reform. It is this peculiar cultural predicament — the combination of disillusionment with stability, radicalization with stalemate, discontent and derangement with sterility and apathy — that I keep calling decadence. Whether it will last another 10 years is an open question; a catastrophe or a renaissance might be just around the corner. But as we usher out the 2010s, this decade of distrustful stability and prosperous despair, it has no rival as the presiding spirit of our age.” (BJM)
COHESION & BROTHERHOOD RETURN: My Neighborhood Was on Fire. My Neighbors Came Together to Save It. (12 min) “Minutes later three trucks arrived, packed with young men, their faces covered in rags and particle masks. The drivers, unmasked, had the hard, strained faces of men in combat. I was overjoyed. They arrived with shovels and buckets — the meager weapons they could scavenge to save what remained of Malibu from the flames. They were less excited to see me, standing there with one leg still covered in bandages from my accident, equipped with a vintage convertible that was not exactly the ideal vehicle for the circumstances. Despite their skepticism, they let me join them. As night fell, I followed the group down into the smoke and water of a nearby gully. We were a ragged silent patrol, in a landscape of charred sand, distant fires, smoking vehicles and black water. It felt more like a patrol in Afghanistan than my California neighborhood.” (BJM)
Remarks Complete. Nothing Follows.
KS Anthony (KSA) & Brady Moore (BJM)