Another Pointless Assassination in Baghdad

Deterrence wasn’t restored four years ago, it hasn’t been restored at any point since then, and it won’t be restored by blowing up another Iraqi leader.

It’s January in an election year, so it must be time for the U.S. to assassinate someone in Baghdad:

A U.S. Special Operations drone strike in Baghdad on Thursday killed a senior figure in an Iran-linked militant group that is part of Iraq’s security apparatus, drawing sharp criticism from the Iraqi government, as well as allied groups.

It is absurd that the U.S. is still engaged in hostilities in Iraq almost 33 years after the end of Desert Storm. There are few better examples of the stupidity and futility of our government’s Middle Eastern policies than the tit-for-tat strikes between U.S. forces and Iraqi militias that answer to a government that our military is supposedly there to support. The U.S. is routinely committing acts of war against the security forces of a government that is considered a partner of the United States, and it does so over the vehement objections of the government that is compelled to host our troops. As if this weren’t already bad enough, this also makes conflict with Iran more likely.

Every time that the U.S. bombs a target in Iraq or Syria, some government official claims that it is being done to “restore deterrence.” It never works. It hasn’t worked for years for the simple reason that U.S. forces should not be in these countries and local forces are never going to accept their presence. Our troops don’t belong in these countries, they have no proper authorization to be there in any case, and they aren’t welcome there. One president after another can order all the assassinations by drone that he likes, but it won’t change that reality.

Four years ago this week, U.S. forces killed Qassem Soleimani and a leading member of an Iraqi Shia militia in a drone strike at the airport in Baghdad. The Trump administration initially claimed that this was done to thwart an imminent attack on U.S. troops. That was an obvious lie, as anyone could see at the time. Then the administration fell back on the story that killing Soleimani would “restore deterrence” and halt further attacks on bases where U.S. troops were located.

A few days after Soleimani was killed, Iran launched its largest direct missile barrage against U.S. forces, and over a hundred Americans were injured, including some with very serious traumatic brain injuries. Iraqi militia attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria have continued ever since, and they have sharply increased in the months since the start of the war in Gaza. Deterrence wasn’t restored four years ago, it hasn’t been restored at any point since then, and it won’t be restored by blowing up another Iraqi leader. Our government keeps killing people in Iraq and Syria in the name of protecting troops when they would be much safer if they were withdrawn from those countries.

The U.S. perpetuates bad policies in Iraq and Syria largely out of inertia and lack of imagination. One administration inherits stupid deployments and wrongly believes that it has to continue them for fear of creating a “vacuum.” Keeping troops in these countries doesn’t make America the slightest bit safer. In fact, it exposes our troops to possible injury and death for no compelling reason, and it makes it more likely that the U.S. goes to war again in the Middle East when it has no reason to fight. Twenty years after the U.S. illegally invaded Iraq, it makes no sense for any U.S. troops to be doing anything in that country except guarding our embassy.

American bombs have been falling on Iraqi soil for three quarters of my lifetime, and it is impossible to justify what our government has done to that country over the last three decades. The least that the U.S. can do now is to get its forces out of Iraq and keep them out for good. Iraq has never posed a threat to our country, and it is long past time that our government stopped threatening and attacking theirs.