A military reader shares his take on recent events from the Middle East:
I’m an American field grade officer in [REDACTED], and would like to calm things down a bit, concerning the Iranian missile strike on Al-Assad Air Base, and Erbil. I was in [REDACTED] during the strike. Here’s my take.
1. We received “intelligence reports” that there would be a missile strike that night in two volleys. We didn’t know the hour, or location, but there were in fact two volleys. Field intelligence is never that accurate, in my experience.
2. The first volley launched within minutes of us receiving the “intelligence report”.
3. I watched the rockets impact – mostly ineffectively – on a live feed.
4. Pres Trump tweeted that there were no American casualties, and little damage, before we even received the Battle Damage Assessment, but he was right.
5. Iran, Iraq, and Pres Trump were all talking about de-escalation within hours of the strike.
The whole night, I couldn’t escape the feeling that the whole thing is intended to give Pres Trump a reason to remove troops from Iraq, while giving all three parties (Iran, Iraq, and the USA) reason to claim a win – the USA killed a very bad man, Iran struck The Great Satan, and Iraq gets to reassert their sovereignty.
We’ll see, but that’s the way it looks from [REDACTED]. Finally….
6. I watched the Neo-Clowns on Fox News agitate for war. I just thought, “give it a rest, man!”
If war is politics by other means, military theatrics are diplomacy by other means. And what we’re seeing here looks a lot more indicative of diplomacy-by-missile-barrage than actual war.