ANALYSIS: Iranian axis in Iraq preparing for war with US

As Iran is still figuring out how to deal with the huge coronavirus crisis in the Islamic Republic and tries to hide the full scope of the pandemic, it continues its proxy war against the US army in Iraq and against Saudi-Arabia via its Ansar Allah or Houthi proxies.

The real death toll of the COVID-19 crisis in Iran may never be known but according to the People Mohajedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), the de-facto Iranian opposition 12.400 Iranians have died as a result of the Corona outbreak in the Islamic Republic.

“The official ILNA news agency reported that Qazvin’s Velayat hospital had been dealing with COVID-19 patients two full weeks before the regime acknowledged the start of the epidemic with two deaths in Qom,” according to PMOI.

The Iranian opposition warned that Iranian prisons, in particular, are hotbeds for the spreading virus that has now reached all of Iran with most cases in Qom, Tehran, and the Isfahan province.

Radio Farda, an Iranian media outlet affiliated with Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, reported a different death toll and provided more insight into the scope of the Corona disaster in Iran.

A staggering 67.000 Iranians have contracted the COVID-19 virus while Radio Farda puts the death toll on almost 4.300 a possible “conservative estimate” according to the Farsi language radio station.

This doesn’t mean, however, that Iran is scaling back its operations in countries that it regards part of the emerging Shiite Crescent it is trying to establish in Iraq, Syria and, Lebanon.

Iran is also behind the increasingly aggressive attacks on Saudi-Arabia via its Yemenite proxy Ansar Allah. The reason Iran wants Ansar Allah to escalate its attacks on Saudi Arabia is that sowing mayhem in the Kingdom is part of its messianic end of days policy based on the so-called Mahdi doctrine and the Corona crisis that has paralyzed Saudi Arabia as well.

The oil-rich Kingdom has become more vulnerable economically speaking due to plunging oil prices that have reached record low levels the past month as a result of declining demand after the world-wide Corona outbreak.

According to the Mahdi doctrine the hidden Imam Mahdi will only return to planet earth after Iranian control over Saudi Arabia’s holy Muslim sites in Mecca and Medina something that would be preceded by chaos and mayhem in the Kingdom.

Late Saturday night Ansar Allah attacked the Saudi capital Riyadh with ballistic missiles it obtained from the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

“Residents in Riyadh heard loud booms late Saturday night as Saudi defenses intercepted at least one ballistic missile, the officials said. Saudi defenses also shot down at least one missile fired at Jizan, a Saudi city near Yemen, they added,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Earlier, on Friday Saudi Arabia shot down a drone belonging to Ansar Allah over the southwest of the Kingdom. That attack came a day after the Shiite militia in Yemen embraced a United Nations call for a ceasefire in the endless Yemenite war citing concerns about the increasing humanitarian disaster in Yemen where a large part of the population already suffered from famine.

Then there is Iraq where both the US army as well as the Iranian-backed Shiite militias are gearing up for a long-anticipated confrontation.

Almost two weeks ago the Iraq-Iran issue led to a heated debate at the White House where Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and other Administration officials wanted to escalate military action against Iran while Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed such a move.

Esper and Milley claimed there wasn’t enough evidence that Iran’s most important Iraqi proxy Khata’ib Hezbollah had been behind a spate of rocket- and mortar attacks on American targets since the US military assassinated Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and the veteran commander of Khata’ib Hezbollah Abu Mahdi Muhandis on January 3, this year.

At the time, US President Donald J. Trump seemed to side with Esper and Milley but the latest reports indicate the US military is preparing for a new battle in Iraq this time to rout Khata’ib Hezbollah whose leaders have already been included in Trump’s ‘ maximal pressure’ campaign against Iran.

Over the past two weeks American forces in Iraq – the US has an estimated 5.000 soldiers on the ground in Iraq currently- had begun repositioning and stopped training Iraqi soldiers.

US State Department assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker is one of the influential US diplomats who has been warning against ignoring the belligerent activities of the Iranian militia in Iraq who work together as the umbrella organization al-Hashd al-Sha’abi.

Al Hashd al-Shaabi has been warning the US to get out of Iraq or face increasing violent attacks after the assassination of Soleimani and al-Muhandis and that’s what we are witnessing today.

The Iranian axis in Iraq, via the Swiss embassy in Tehran, warned the Americans, furthermore, that “any US military aggression against Iran will be met with a highly destructive response.”

At the same time, Khata’ib Hezbollah together with other al-Hashd al-Sha’abi militias started a large drill that simulated war with the Americans.

The US from its side, is also preparing for a conflict with the Iranian axis and Khata’ib Hezbollah in particular.

The New York Times, at the end last week, published an article dealing with the increasing tensions in Iraq and reported that the Pentagon had drawn-up “secret plans to escalate combat in Iraq against Iranian-backed militia.”

The problem is, however, that al-Hashd al Sha’abi has roughly 140.000 battle-hardened fighters at its disposal while the US military has a mere 5.000 on the ground in Iraq.

Trump has now to decide if he will deal Iran another devastating blow by building up enough forces to confront al-Hashd al-Sha’abi. The predominantly Shiite paramilitary organization has become an important player in Iraq and was integrated into the Iraqi army in 2017 to make it more difficult for the US and its allies to take action against the Iranian axis.

After all, the US military has been in Iraq with permission of the Iraqi government for only one reason: to defeat ISIS a job that ostensible was completed at the beginning of last year.