The impact seems to have been limited, however, as the crisis surrounding the embassy continues.
Echoes of 1979
For some number of Americans, the assault in Baghdad echoed events of 40 years ago, when the US embassy in Tehran was besieged after the Iranian revolution. In a protracted stand-off, American diplomats were held hostage for 444 days.
The attackers claimed to be students, angry at Washington, for allowing Iran’s recently deposed ruler, then ailing and dying of cancer, into the US for medical treatment. It quickly became clear, however, that Tehran’s new, revolutionary regime was behind the assault on the US embassy.
That crisis was a major factor in the 1980 electoral defeat of then-President Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan, who defeated Carter, promised a tough US policy that would end such humiliations, and, in fact, Iran released the embassy hostages on the very day that Reagan became president.
Hence, Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning, “Iran is orchestrating an attack on the US Embassy in Iraq.” Others, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, Amb. John Bolton, Sen. Marco Rubio (R, Florida), and Rep. Eliot Engel (D, New York), among others, all said much the same.
Senior US Officials Speak with Iraqi Leaders
Secretary of State Pompeo spoke with Abdul Mahdi and Iraqi President Barham Salih about the embassy attack and described those discussions to CBS Evening News.
“Early this morning, I made clear when I spoke with the Iraqi leadership that the Iraqis have the responsibility to keep our facilities safe,” Pompeo said, and “they have responded. They brought counterterrorism forces to bear.”
Read More: Top Iraqi officials condemn attempts to storm US embassy in Baghdad
Nonetheless, Pompeo described the situation in Baghdad as “serious,” and he emphasized, “We’re watching.”
Failure of Deterrence
On Monday, State Department officials speaking to journalists about the US airstrikes the day before targeting Kata’ib Hizbollah sites in Iraq and Syria, characterized them as “defensive strikes that re-establish deterrence.”
Read More: US: Strikes on Kata’ib Hizbollah aim to deter Iranian aggression
The strikes, along the border between Iraq and Syria, were notable as the first US military action in the context of the current confrontation with Iran. However, it was a very limited military operation.
“Why do you think that you have deterred Iran?” Kurdistan 24 asked those officials. And it is evident, just a day later, that neither Iran, nor its proxies, was deterred.
Indeed, that is pretty much what Col. Norvell DeAtkine (US Army, Retired), formerly Director of Middle East Studies at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, anticipated.
“Iran will do something, and then we will up the ante a bit,” and “I’m not sure where that will lead,” DeAtkine told Kurdistan 24. “But what really bothers me is the whole idea of gradual escalation, like we did in Vietnam.”
“That doesn’t work,” he affirmed. “If the problem is Iran, we should hit Iran.” And it should be “a bold stroke” that does “a lot of damage.”
Whether Trump is prepared for that is unclear. But he also wants to achieve goals – like ending Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its broader aggression in the Middle East – that may only be achievable with military force.
“The Trump administration seems to be following an ‘escalate to de-escalate’ strategy against Iran and its proxies,” Nicholas Heras, a Fellow at the Center for a New American Strategy, told Kurdistan 24. “But the extent to which it is willing to escalate against Iran, such as by striking Iranian targets inside Iran, is a huge question for the coming year.”
The underlying premise of US policy, Heras suggested, “is that Iran and its proxies will be aggressive,” as a matter of Iranian policy. So “the best response would be a policy based on the principle that a good offense is a good defense.”
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany