{"id":116566,"date":"2024-02-19T08:39:42","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T13:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=116566"},"modified":"2024-02-19T08:39:42","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T13:39:42","slug":"iran-us-no-war-for-now-but-no-peace-either","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2024\/02\/19\/iran-us-no-war-for-now-but-no-peace-either\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran-US: No war for now, but no peace, either"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"VOA \u2014 The US has launched retaliatory strikes on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. However, neither Iran nor the US has any interest in starting another war in the region.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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The US claims to have found the instigator of\u00a0a\u00a0drone attack<\/a>\u00a0on a US base in Jordan near the Iraqi border that claimed the lives of three soldiers at the end of January.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the press ahead of the\u00a0recent US airstrikes<\/a>\u00a0in Iraq and Syria on Iranian-backed militias, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Washington believed the drone attack was “planned, resourced and facilitated by an umbrella group called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq” \u2014 a\u00a0group of several Iraqi armed groups that are backed by Iran.<\/p>\n

The military action took place amid extreme tensions in the Middle East as a result of the\u00a0war between Israel<\/a>\u00a0and the Islamist militant organization Hamas. There are fears that it could lead to a direct confrontation between the US and Iran.<\/p>\n

Iran denies accusations, issues threats<\/h2>\n

According to the Iranian state news agency IRNA, Iran has denied any involvement in the Jordan attack. “We are not looking for a war\u00a0but are not afraid of it either,” the agency quoted General Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, as saying last week. “We are not warmongers, but we defend ourselves and our glory.”<\/p>\n

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US strikes hit pro-Iran militia in Syria, Iraq<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also urged the US to refrain from making threats and accusations and focus on a political solution. Iran’s response to threats would be swift and decisive, he said.<\/p>\n

Hamidreza Azizi, an Iran expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said on Friday that ascribing every move made by a militia associated with Iran to decisions made by Iran’s leadership was overly simplistic. Iran, he said, supported many armed groups abroad, including the\u00a0Houthi<\/a>\u00a0militia in Yemen, the Kataib-Hezbollah in Iraq\u00a0and\u00a0Hezbollah<\/a>\u00a0in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

“Together, they form an ‘axis of resistance’ against Israel and the US,” he said.<\/p>\n

This support encompasses the provision of weapons\u00a0as well as logistical and economic assistance, he said. “Based on this, one can indeed conclude that the collective decision to escalate against the US and Israel in response to the war in Gaza was taken by all these groups\u00a0in coordination with and with the support of Iran,” said Azizi, who conducted research on regional security at Iranian universities before moving to Germany in 2020.<\/p>\n

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\"\u00a0Ayatollah\"\u00a0Ayatollah<\/div>\n<\/div>
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said he wants the US ‘expelled’ from Iraq and SyriaImage: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader\/AP Photo\/picture alliance<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, Azizi noted that the individual groups had\u00a0significant autonomy at the tactical and operational levels, especially when selecting the targets for attacks. “It is therefore difficult to assess the extent of Iran’s involvement,” Azizi said.<\/p>\n

Ali Fathollah-Nejad, the founder of the\u00a0Center for Middle East and Global Order<\/a>\u00a0in Berlin, also thinks it unlikely that Iran knew nothing about the attacks. After all, as he pointed out on the Swiss television channel SRF, the situation in the Middle East is extremely dangerous for the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

It has taken care to avoid a direct conflict with the US or Israel, because any war resulting from this would endanger the security of the regime in Tehran. “The leaders in Tehran are well aware of this,” Fathollah-Nejad said.<\/p>\n

Struggling for influence in border regions<\/h2>\n

The drone attack on the American al-Tanf military base at the end of January took place in a region that was controlled by the jihadi terrorist organization\u00a0“Islamic State” (IS)<\/a>\u00a0up until 2015.<\/p>\n

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\"A\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
Members of the Iran-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah arriving to fight against ‘IS’ in Iraq in 2014Image: dpa\/picture alliance<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In recent years, IS has largely been defeated. Foreign players have now taken control of the area. The Jordanian government has given permission for the US presence there: The American forces are supposed to contain the remaining IS militias as much as possible.<\/p>\n

According to the most recent study by the International Crisis Group, Iran is also heavily represented in this area. However, the ICG says it is difficult to assess the size of the Iranian forces. There is concern in Washington that Iran is trying to establish an east-west land corridor through Iraq and Syria\u00a0to complement the existing air corridor. This would enable Iran to supply weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, on the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

For its part, the ICG analysis concludes, Iran wants to prevent the US from controlling the north-south route from the Turkish border to the border with Jordan. That would cut off Iran from its allies and proxies in the region.<\/p>\n

Further provocation not ruled out<\/h2>\n

Ideally, Iran would like to “expel” the US from the region, as its\u00a0spiritual and political leader Ali Khamenei has declared. Hamidreza Azizi commented that Tehran therefore sees the war in Gaza as a suitable opportunity for increasing pressure on the US. Repeated attacks on American targets in the region might induce Washington to pressure Israel to put a swift\u00a0end to the war with Hamas, he said.<\/p>\n

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\"A\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
Houthi militias targeted the US-owned Genco Picardy in a drone attack in the Gulf of Aden on January 17Image: dpa<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“As a result, there has been a division of labor among the groups allied with Iran,” Azizi said. “The Houthi militias took on the task of creating tension in the Red Sea while the Iraqi militias exert pressure on the US in Iraq and eastern Syria.”<\/p>\n

However, Azizi said that, in any actions they take, they will seek to avoid American casualties. “Iran and its allies knew that American fatalities would trigger a more determined response from Washington,” he explained. “And Tehran does not want a war with Washington.”<\/p>\n

This article was originally written in German.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 The US has launched retaliatory strikes on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. However, neither Iran nor the US has any interest in starting another war in the region. The US claims to have found the instigator of\u00a0a\u00a0drone attack\u00a0on a US base in Jordan near the Iraqi border that claimed the lives of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116566"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116569,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116566\/revisions\/116569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}