1ac rd 5

Affirm the Plan: The United States should substantially reduce its military presence in
the Republic of Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic.
Value is minimizing suffering
Value criterion is justice
Framework
Extinction comes first!
Pummer 15 [Theron, Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at St. Anne's College, University of Oxford.
“Moral Agreement on Saving the World” Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. May 18, 2015] AT

There appears to be lot of disagreement in moral philosophy. Whether these many apparent
disagreements are deep and irresolvable, I believe there is at least one thing it is reasonable to agree on
right now, whatever general moral view we adopt: that it is very important to reduce the risk that all intelligent beings
on this planet are eliminated by an enormous catastrophe, such as a nuclear war. How we might in fact try to reduce
such existential risks is discussed elsewhere. My claim here is only that we – whether we’re consequentialists, deontologists, or

virtue ethicists – should all agree that we should try to save the world. According to consequentialism, we should maximize
the good, where this is taken to be the goodness, from an impartial perspective, of outcomes. Clearly one thing that makes an outcome

good is that the people in it are doing well. There is little disagreement here. If the happiness or well-being of possible
future people is just as important as that of people who already exist, and if they would have good lives, it is not hard to see how reducing existential

risk is easily the most important thing in the whole world. This is for the familiar reason that there are so
many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. There are
so many possible future people that reducing existential risk is arguably the most important thing in the
world, even if the well-being of these possible people were given only 0.001% as much weight as that of
existing people. Even on a wholly person-affecting view – according to which there’s nothing (apart from effects on existing people) to be said in favor of
creating happy people – the case for reducing existential risk is very strong. As noted in this seminal paper, this case is strengthened by the fact

that there’s a good chance that many existing people will, with the aid of life-extension technology, live
very long and very high quality lives. You might think what I have just argued applies to
consequentialists only. There is a tendency to assume that, if an argument appeals to consequentialist
considerations (the goodness of outcomes), it is irrelevant to non-consequentialists. But that is a huge
mistake. Non-consequentialism is the view that there’s more that determines rightness than the
goodness of consequences or outcomes; it is not the view that the latter don’t matter. Even John Rawls wrote,
“All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One

which did not would simply be irrational, crazy.” Minimally plausible versions of deontology and virtue
ethics must be concerned in part with promoting the good, from an impartial point of view. They’d thus
imply very strong reasons to reduce existential risk, at least when this doesn’t significantly involve doing harm to others or damaging
one’s character. What’s even more surprising, perhaps, is that even if our own good (or that of those near and dear to us) has much greater weight than goodness
from the impartial “point of view of the universe,” indeed even if the latter is entirely morally irrelevant, we may nonetheless have very strong reasons to reduce
existential risk. Even
egoism, the view that each agent should maximize her own good, might imply strong
reasons to reduce existential risk. It will depend, among other things, on what one’s own good consists in. If well-being consisted in pleasure
only, it is somewhat harder to argue that egoism would imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk – perhaps we could argue that one would maximize her
expected hedonic well-being by funding life extension technology or by having herself cryogenically frozen at the time of her bodily death as well as giving money to
reduce existential risk (so that there is a world for her to live in!). I am not sure, however, how strong the reasons to do this would be. But views which imply that, if
I don’t care about other people, I have no or very little reason to help them are not even minimally plausible views (in addition to hedonistic egoism, I here have in
mind views that imply that one has no reason to perform an act unless one actually desires to do that act). To be minimally plausible, egoism
will need to be paired with a more sophisticated account of well-being. To see this, it is enough to consider, as Plato did, the
possibility of a ring of invisibility – suppose that, while wearing it, Ayn could derive some pleasure by helping the

poor, but instead could derive just a bit more by severely harming them. Hedonistic egoism would
absurdly imply she should do the latter. To avoid this implication, egoists would need to build something
like the meaningfulness of a life into well-being, in some robust way, where this would to a significant extent be a function of other-
regarding concerns (see chapter 12 of this classic intro to ethics). But once these elements are included, we can (roughly, as

above) argue that this sort of egoism will imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Add to all of this Samuel
Scheffler’s recent intriguing arguments (quick podcast version available here) that most of what makes our lives go well would be undermined if there were no
future generations of intelligent persons. On his view, my life would contain vastly less well-being if (say) a year after my death the world came to an end. So
obviously if Scheffler were right I’d have very strong reason to reduce existential risk. We
should also take into account moral
uncertainty. What is it reasonable for one to do, when one is uncertain not (only) about the empirical
facts, but also about the moral facts? I’ve just argued that there’s agreement among minimally plausible ethical
views that we have strong reason to reduce existential risk – not only consequentialists, but also
deontologists, virtue ethicists, and sophisticated egoists should agree. But even those (hedonistic egoists)
who disagree should have a significant level of confidence that they are mistaken, and that one of the
above views is correct. Even if they were 90% sure that their view is the correct one (and 10% sure that one of these
other ones is correct), they would have pretty strong reason, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, to

reduce existential risk. Perhaps most disturbingly still, even if we are only 1% sure that the well-being of possible
future people matters, it is at least arguable that, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, reducing
existential risk is the most important thing in the world. Again, this is largely for the reason that there are so many people who could
exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. (For more on this and other related issues, see this excellent dissertation). Of course, it is
uncertain whether these untold trillions would, in general, have good lives. It’s possible they’ll be miserable. It
is enough for my claim that there
is moral agreement in the relevant sense if, at least given certain empirical claims about what future lives would most likely be like, all
minimally plausible moral views would converge on the conclusion that we should try to save the
world. While there are some non-crazy views that place significantly greater moral weight on avoiding suffering than
on promoting happiness, for reasons others have offered (and for independent reasons I won’t get into here unless requested to), they nonetheless
seem to be fairly implausible views. And even if things did not go well for our ancestors, I am optimistic
that they will overall go fantastically well for our descendants, if we allow them to. I suspect that most of
us alive today – at least those of us not suffering from extreme illness or poverty – have lives that are
well worth living, and that things will continue to improve. Derek Parfit, whose work has emphasized future generations as well as
agreement in ethics, described our situation clearly and accurately: “We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific and technological

discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to
transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will

survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy….
Our descendants might, I believe, make the further future very good. But that good future may also
depend in part on us. If our selfish recklessness ends human history, we would be acting very wrongly. ”
(From chapter 36 of On What Matters)
 ADV 1
Russian forces continue to attack US bases in Syria
Nikita Smagin, 10/17/23-"Forgotten Front: Why Syria Is Becoming a Headache for
Russia," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/90784 ] RM
For several years, Russia has set itself the joint mission with Iran of pushing the United States out of Syria—and ideally out of the entire Middle East. Yet Russia’s
full-scale invasion of Ukraine and subsequent growing alignment with Tehran have actually had the opposite effect: the U.S. presence in the region is growing.
Indeed, Washington finally has a clear justification for continuing its campaign in Syria. The more Russia gets entangled in the Middle East, the more challenging it
becomes for Moscow to handle Ukraine. In addition to Russia’s confrontation with the United States, the
situation inside Syria itself is
escalating, and Russia is also dealing with the problems of integrating the remaining Wagner mercenary troops into the Russian armed forces following the
dismantling of Wagner and dramatic death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. These growing difficulties are turning the war-torn

country into a headache for Moscow and undermining hopes that Syria would not distract the Russian
leadership from the war in Ukraine. Since this spring, Russia has intensified its activities in the skies
over Syria. In addition to strikes against militants, this activity is directed against U.S. forces present in
the country. Russian aircraft and drones fly over American military installations, contrary to
agreements between the two powers on delineating areas of activity. The U.S. military has repeatedly
reported dangerous maneuvers by Russian Air Force pilots with regard to American drones and fighter
jets, while the Russian military in turn claims that incidents in the sky are caused by the Americans
violating the agreements. Containing the United States was already part of the job of Russian forces in Syria, but, previously, it was largely the navy’s
responsibility. Now Moscow is being forced to shift the focus to aviation, since there are hardly any Russian ships left in the Mediterranean. It became very difficult
to rotate naval forces following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when Turkey closed the Bosporus Strait to military vessels, cutting off Russia’s Black Sea Fleet from
Syria. The increase in incidents between Russian and U.S. warplanes coincided with a surge in clashes
between the Americans and Iranian proxies in Syria. According to media leaks, Tehran and Moscow
have been coordinating their actions as part of a joint effort to push Washington out of the region.
While Russian aviation puts pressure on the United States in the air, Iranian proxy forces carry out
missile strikes against American targets in both Syria and Iraq. These attacks are intended more to scare than to inflict
damage, and usually the rockets intentionally miss the target and explode somewhere nearby. This is not always the case, however, and

some launches have killed and injured U.S. base personnel. It was after one such attack in 2020 that
then U.S. president Donald Trump ordered the killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. The
problem is that Russia and Iran’s efforts to squeeze the United States out of the Middle East are
having precisely the opposite effect. The U.S. military presence in the region is only increasing. In July, Washington deployed the
USS Thomas Hudner destroyer to the Persian Gulf, along with F-35 and F-16 fighter jets, in addition to the existing forces. Just a few days later, two more ships with
marine landing forces were added with the stated aim of protecting commercial vessels from “Iranian destabilization activities in the region.” As a result, the
number of American troops in the Gulf reached its highest level in recent years. To counter the “unprofessional behavior” of Russian pilots over Syria, additional
fifth-generation F-22 Raptor fighters were sent directly to Syria. The U.S. military claims that these additional aircraft help to deter such behavior. U.S. actions go
beyond deploying new units. In late summer, the Americans attempted to unite all the allied forces in Syria, including Arab tribal structures, into a single coalition
around the American base at Al-Tanf and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whose backbone is made up of Kurdish units. Judging by recent clashes between pro-
American groups, the creation of a unified front is far from plain sailing. Still, the fact that the United States is making efforts to this end indicates that Washington
has no intention of yielding to Russian-Iranian pressure in Syria—especially considering that any additional tension in Syria distracts Moscow from Ukraine. Russia’s
goal of maintaining a relatively low-key presence in Syria that would not require excessive financial resources or be a distraction from the Ukrainian fronts is
becoming increasingly unrealistic, not least because of the greater U.S. presence prompted by Moscow’s own provocative actions there. There are, however, other
problems not directly related to Russia. Bashar al-Assad’s government has regained control over most of Syria, but that has not necessarily meant a return to normal
life. Hunger and corruption have become integral parts of the local socioeconomic landscape, and by the end of summer, major protests had erupted in several
areas under Damascus’s control, sometimes accompanied by large-scale clashes. The situation is so serious that the authorities have partially lost control over the
Suwayda province. Far from events in Syria settling down, therefore, instability is increasing, and there are no solutions to the country’s economic problems. This
year, the vestiges of the Islamic State group have even reanimated in the country, seeking to exploit the new surge of dissatisfaction. All of this comes at a time
when Russia needs to figure out what to do with the remnants of the Wagner mercenary army. Initial attempts to replace Wagner in Syria with Russian military
troops reportedly brought the two formations to the brink of an armed skirmish. The process will not be easy, and a weakening of Russia’s influence there seems
inevitable. The fact is that Wagner did the work in Syria that the Russian Defense Ministry handled poorly: developing oil deposits, establishing connections with
local groups, shoring up Russia’s presence in new areas, and conducting civilian reconnaissance. The Russian military cannot transform overnight into an effective
force to address such tasks. In any case, Wagner is a complex structure with its own economic bloc and political consultants. Many elements of this model simply
have no place within the Defense Ministry. The results of these difficulties can already be seen in attempts by pro-Iranian formations to take over areas previously
dominated by Wagner. Syria’s oil fields are a particularly tempting prize. Russia’s position in Syria is still far from critical, but certain challenges are unavoidable.
Syria has not only failed to become a secure base for Russian troops, but is increasingly generating its own crises, albeit localized—for now.

Independently, Russia launches a diversionary shadow war to distract from Ukraine –

US in Syria is the only scenario for first strike.
Kelly 23, Laura Kelly (Foreign policy reporter for The Hill, reported from around the world and in
conflict zones, including in Ukraine, Israel, and in northern Iraq covering the fight against ISIS. BA in
Sociology from Fordham University), 8-5-2023, "Under pressure in Ukraine, Putin lashes out at US in
Syria," Hill, https://thehill.com/policy/international/4138170-under-pressure-in-ukraine-putin-lashes-
out-at-us-in-syria/ tanya

Dangerous confrontations between Russia and the United States in the skies over Syria point to an
escalating shadow wa\r as Russian President Vladimir Putin suffers more losses in Ukraine.

Experts warn that Putin

is looking to strike against the U.S. for supporting Ukraine in its defensive war, with
Moscow focusing its retaliatory actions in the Middle East to avoid a wider conflict with NATO in
Europe.

“We have seen, clearly

since at least March of this year, a clear escalation of tensions, driven largely by
Russian provocations of the U.S. in Syria,” said Mona Yacoubian, vice president of the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Middle East and
North Africa center.

“Those heightened tensions derive directly from the war in Ukraine, where I think the Russians are
looking to stick a finger in the U.S. eye, provoke the U.S. to the extent that they can, in a place that’s a
bit removed from the Ukraine conflict arena itself.”

Ukrainian forces are slowly regaining territory that Russia captured when it launched its full-scale
invasion against the country in February 2022. In an effort to ramp up pressure on Ukraine’s backers, Russia has abandoned a
deal that allowed for the export of grain from Ukraine’s ports and increased attacks on Ukrainian civilian and agricultural infrastructure.

Putin has often framed his war of aggression against Ukraine as a defensive war against the West, and
lashed out at the U.S. for its tens of billions of aide to Kyiv in military equipment and economic support.

Now his frustration is translating into dangerous confrontations with the U.S. in Syria.

In back-to-back
incidents at the end of July, Russian warplanes fired flares that reportedly damaged two
U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drones — weaponized, unmanned aircrafts that cost more than $30 million each.

This followed what the Pentagon said were four other instances last month of Russian aircraft dangerously crossing over the
flight path of American warplanes in Syria’s skies.

In a similar incident in March,

a Russian jet clipped the propeller of an American Reaper drone above the Black
Sea, causing it to crash in a move that the Biden administration called “unsafe and unprofessional.”

US-Russia War in Syria goes nuclear

CD 18 [(Common Dreams, is a 501 nonprofit, U.S.-based news website), “U.S. Attack on Syria Could Lead to Nuclear War”,
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2018/04/12/us-attack-syria-could-lead-nuclear-war, April, 12 2018,] SS
 A leading veterans' organization is warning that a U.S. attack on Syria could lead to a nuclear
WASHINGTON -

war. Russian military forces in Syria will undoubtedly be among the targets of U.S. missiles. Russia has
said it will shoot down U.S. missiles, and attack the "platforms from which they are fired," i.e. U.S. ships.

"Why the rush to war?" asked Gerry Condon, president of Veterans For Peace. "Why is the mass media cheerleading for war instead of asking hard questions? Why are
Democratic and Republican politicians trying to out-do one another with calls for ever more massive attacks on Syria?

Even if the reports are

"There is no proof yet of a Syrian government gas attack, only a video made by a fundamentalist rebel group that wants more U.S. intervention.

true, a military response will only lead to more death and destruction, and dangerous escalations.

"We are talking about a direct confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers," said Gerry Condon. "Why would the
U.S. risk nuclear war over dubious chemical weapons claims?

lied into the Iraq War with false reports of

"Veterans have longer memories than the press and the politicians," said Condon. "We remember how we were

'weapons of mass destruction.' U.S. wars throughout the Middle East have caused millions of deaths
and destroyed entire societies. Our soldiers and their families have also paid an extremely high price."
"Veterans, GI's and their families will not accept another war based on lies," said Gerry Condon. "We will be protesting in the streets, in the suites, at media outlets and at military bases.

All military personnel, from low ranking GI's to the top generals and admirals, have an obligation to disobey illegal orders. Orders to carry out acts of war against a sovereign nation that is not
threatening the U.S. are illegal orders.

Right now those enemies

"We swore an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic," said Gerry Condon, president of Veterans For Peace. "

are those who would rush our country recklessly into another devastating war."

That’s the biggest existential nuclear risk – it outweighs other impacts

Sebastian Farquhar et al 17 [DPhil from Oxford, John Halstead (DPhil Oxford in Politics), Owen Cotton-Barratt (DPhil Oxford in Math),
Stefan Schubert (PhD Philosophy), Haydn Belfield (Academic Project Manager @ Centere for the Study of Existential Risk), Andrew Snyder-
Beattie (DPhil candidate in biomathematics and economics)], “Existential Risk: Diplomacy and Governance,” Global Priorities Project,
https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Existential-Risks-2017-01-23.pdf

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated the unprecedented destructive power of nuclear weapons. However, even in an all-
out nuclear war between the United States and Russia, despite horrific casualties, neither country’s population is likely to be
completely destroyed by the direct effects of the blast, fire, and radiation. The aftermath could be much worse: the burning
of flammable materials could send massive amounts of smoke into the atmosphere, which would
absorb sunlight and cause sustained global cooling, severe ozone loss, and agricultural disruption – a
nuclear winter.

According to one model, an all-out exchange of 4,000 weapons could lead to a drop in global temperatures of around
8°C, making it impossible to grow food for 4 to 5 years. This could leave some survivors in parts of Australia and New
Zealand, but they would be in a very precarious situation and the threat of extinction from other sources would be
great. An exchange on this scale is only possible between the US and Russia who have more than 90% of
the world’s nuclear weapons, with stockpiles of around 4,500 warheads each, although many are not operationally deployed. Some
models suggest that even a small regional nuclear war involving 100 nuclear weapons would produce a nuclear winter serious
enough to put two billion people at risk of starvation, though this estimate might be pessimistic. Wars on this scale are unlikely to lead
to outright human extinction, but this does suggest that conflicts which are around an order of
magnitude larger may be likely to threaten civilisation. It should be emphasised that there is very large uncertainty about
the effects of a large nuclear war on global climate. This remains an area where increased academic research work, including more detailed
climate modelling and a better understanding of how survivors might be able to cope and adapt, would have high returns.

It is very difficult to precisely estimate the probability of existential risk from nuclear war over the next century, and existing attempts leave
very large confidence intervals. According to many experts, the most likely nuclear war at present is between India and Pakistan. However,
given the relatively modest size of their arsenals, the risk of human extinction is plausibly greater from a conflict
between the United States and Russia. Tensions between these countries have increased in recent
years and it seems unreasonable to rule out the possibility of them rising further in the future .

The plan solves. Studies disprove power vacuum, credibility gaps, and Iranian
violence.
DePetris 12/20 [Daniel Depetris, fellow at Defense Priorities, syndicated foreign affairs columnist,
“Withdraw U.S. Troops From Syria and Iraq,” 12/20/23, Defense Priorities,
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56a146abb204d5878d6f125a/t/
65825eeadbc9d96b7657ba71/1703042798576/DEFP_Withdrawal_US_troops_from_Syria_and_Iraq.pdf]
Justin recut *DV AP*
Third, according to the so-called “vacuum theory,” a U.S. withdrawal would not only degrade U.S. power and influence in the Middle East but
also encourage its adversaries. Yet the relatively stable balance of power among states in the region will likely
hold after a U.S. troop departure in Syria and Iraq.43 Even if Iran did succeed in exploiting a U.S. withdrawal for its own
purposes, regional powers like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would not be passive spectators. In
Iraq, for instance, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have sought to improve relations
with Baghdad to maximize their own geopolitical flexibility and balance Tehran’s influence in the
country.44 Syria, which will remain poor, unstable, and politically fractious for the foreseeable future, is more likely to be a burden for those
who fill the so-called vacuum than a benefit.45

Fourth, with respect to credibility, what

the United States chooses to do in Iraq or Syria tells us little about how
the United States would act when direct or higher priority U.S. security interests were at stake. Despite the
conventional wisdom, foreign leaders don’t rely on a state’s past behavior to predict how that same state
will behave in the future.46 Hard power and national interests, not past actions, are far more important
factors in assessing a state’s willingness to act in a given contingency.47 Just as the U.S. withdrawal from
Vietnam didn’t break the U.S. alliance system in Europe or Asia, a U.S. withdrawal from Syria and Iraq
won’t push U.S. allies into the arms of Russia or China, who are unable and unwilling to become the
region’s external security guarantor anyway.
Fifth, while Iran and Iranian-backed militias would welcome a U.S. withdrawal from Syria and Iraq, the United States also benefits by not having
to fight militias that would otherwise have no interest in targeting Americans. Unlike Al-Qaeda, which has a
transnational agenda, the top priority of Syria and Iraq-based militias is compelling a U.S. troop departure. At
times, this mission has been shared by the Iraqi parliament.48 Without those bases, the attacks would not be occurring
and the militias would no longer be a security concern for the United States.

Escalation now – recent attacks are unprecedented in scope and size. US infringement
on Iraqi and Syrian sovereignty ensures conflict.
Liptak 2-6 [Natasha Bertrand, Haley Britzky, Oren Liebermann, Kevin Liptak, "US launches retaliatory
strikes on Iranian-linked militia targets in Iraq and Syria," CNN, 2-3-2024,
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/02/politics/us-strikes-iraq-syria/index.html, accessed 2-6-2024] // David

The US conducted major airstrikes on 85 targets across seven locations in Iraq and Syria on Friday, the
start of what will likely be a series of larger-scale US strikes on Iranian-backed militias who have carried out
attacks on US troops in the Middle East.
The retaliatory strikes – which lasted 30 minutes and were successful, according to the White House – came in response to a drone strike by
Iran-backed militants on a US military outpost in Jordan on Sunday, which killed three US service members and wounded more than 40 others.
President Joe Biden said in a statement that the US military response “will continue at times and places of our choosing.”

“The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know
this: If you harm an American, we will respond,” Biden said.

The strikes on Friday were markedly more significant than previous attacks on Iranian-backed militias
over the last several weeks, which have primarily focused on weapons storage or training facilities. But the administration is
threading a needle – they want to deter and stop further attacks but avoid a full-scale conflict with Iran breaking out in a region already
roiled by the continuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

US Central Command confirmed in a statement that airstrikes were carried out in Iraq and Syria “against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.”

“US military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from the United
States. The airstrikes employed more than 125 precision munitions,” the statement said.
“The facilities that were struck included command and control operations, centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned
aerial vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against
US and Coalition forces,” the statement added.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the strikes are “the start of our response.”
“(The US) launched a blatant air aggression against a number of sites and towns in the eastern region of Syria, and near the Syrian-Iraqi border, which led to the martyrdom of a number of civilians and soldiers, the injury of others,
and the infliction of significant damage to public and private property,” the Syrian Ministry of Defense said in a statement. “We believe that the strikes were successful,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
Casualties The Syrian military on Saturday said the US strikes had killed civilians and soldiers and caused “significant damage” to infrastructure. CNN cannot independently verify the number or nature of the casualties. Syria’s state-
run news agency SANA said the airstrikes had hit the areas of Deir Ezzor, Al-Bukamal, Al-Mayadeen, and their surroundings on the Syrian-Iraqi border. Iraq said the US strikes killed at least 16 people, including civilians, and injured
25 others. The attacks also targeted facilities used by Iranian-linked al Hashd al Shabi – or Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) – in the Iraqi city of Al-Qaim, Iraqi officials said. The PMU is a predominantly Shiite Iran-backed
paramilitary force based in Iraq. Unlike other Iran-backed groups around the region, the PMU is tied to the Iraqi government and is closely linked to Iran-aligned Shiite blocs that for years dominated politics in Iraq. Kirby had earlier
said the US did not know now how many militants were killed or wounded. He added that US military aircraft was now out of harm’s way. Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that the locations
of the strikes were chosen “with an idea that there would likely be casualties” among the IRGC and militia personnel who use them. The strikes took place soon after Biden attended a dignified transfer and met family members of
the soldiers killed in Jordan. B-1 bombers – long-range heavy bombers that can deploy precision and non-precision weapons –were used in the operations, a defense official told CNN. Sims said Friday that the bombers flew in a
“single non-stop flight” from the US, “all of that enhanced by our Transportation Command and our ability to gas and go along the way.” Sims also said that the timing of the strikes was designed around good weather, in “an
interest of ensuring that we’re hitting all the right targets.”

‘Blatant American violation’

Iraq and Syria condemned the US attack as infringements on their sovereignty that risk fueling
regional conflict.

In a statement, Yahya Rasool, a spokesperson for Iraq’s Armed Forces, decried the strikes as a “violation of
Iraqi sovereignty.”
“The city of Al-Qaim and the Iraqi border areas are being subjected to airstrikes by US aircraft, at a time when Iraq is striving hard to ensure the
stability of the region,” Rasool said.

“These strikes are considered a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and undermine the efforts of the Iraqi
government, posing a threat that could drag Iraq and the region into undesirable consequences , the
outcomes will be dire for the security and stability in Iraq and the region,” the spokesman continued.
The mayor of Al-Qaim, Turki Al-Mahalawi, said the strikes hit three houses used as weapon warehouses by the PMU

The US struck targets there last month.

Syria warned that the US strikes “fuel the conflict in the Middle East in a very dangerous way,” and
expressed “deep concern about the state of paralysis that the UN Security Council is suffering from.”

“(Syria) condemns this blatant American violation (and) it categorically rejects all the pretexts and lies
promoted by the American administration to justify this attack,” the Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Echoing both, Iran warned the strikes would only escalate tensions.
“Iranconsiders the attacks as a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria,
international law and a clear violation of the United Nations Charter,” Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement
Friday.

The attack is “an adventurous action and another strategic mistake by the US government, which will
have no result other than intensifying tension and instability in the region,” the statement added.

Presence is the key internal link – causes cause flare-ups, escalatory spirals, and
miscalculation.
ICG 11-10 [11-10-2023, “Understanding the Risks of U.S.-Iran Escalation amid the Gaza Conflict“,
https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iran-united-states/
understanding-risks-us-iran] anika
What is happening?

The United States appears to be in an escalatory spiral of strikes and counterstrikes with Iran-backed
groups in the Middle East. The spiral began on 17 October, with attacks involving drones and indirect fire on U.S.
forces based in Iraq and Syria. Iran-backed groups based in Iraq appear to be the only actors claiming responsibility for these attacks, which are
taking place amid a wider build-up of U.S. military assets in the region as Israel proceeds with its offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The U.S. has now hit back twice, on 26 October and 8 November.

On the first occasion, U.S. forces launched airstrikes on targets in eastern Syria t hat Washington described as
“facilities used by the IRGC [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and IRGC-affiliated groups for command and control, munitions storage, and other purposes”.
The stated objective of deterring further strikes on U.S. forces was not achieved. Attacks
by Iran-backed groups on U.S. forces in both
Iraq and Syria persisted. In early November, the U.S. estimated that at least 40 such attacks – roughly half in
Iraq and half in Syria – had occurred since the middle of the preceding month. At least 22 of them happened after the
U.S. dealt its counterblow on 26 October, with the latest reportedly involving more powerful weapons. As the attacks went on, the U.S. conducted
another airstrike on 8 November on “a weapons storage facility” in eastern Syria “used by the IRGC and affiliated groups”. Again, the deterrent
effect was questionable, as attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria were continuing at the time of publication.
The attacks since 17 October have injured more than 50 U.S. personnel, the majority thus far at al-Tanf, site of a garrison in south-eastern Syria. One U.S. contractor
suffered fatal cardiac arrest while sheltering in Iraq. The 8 November U.S. airstrike may also have resulted in fatalities among IRGC-affiliated personnel, though the
Pentagon asserts no civilian was harmed.

Despite the succession of strikes and counterstrikes, neither side – the U.S. and Israel, on one hand, and Iran and the groups it supports, on the other –
appears to want a major regional escalation. But as the war in Gaza goes on, the risk of exactly that will continue to
increase.
Who are the groups firing at the U.S.?

An umbrella entity calling itself the

Islamic Resistance (al-Muqawama al-Islamiya) has claimed responsibility for the majority of the
attacks on U.S. forces in both Iraq and Syria. The Islamic Resistance appears to comprise Iraqi groups linked to the “axis of resistance” –
that is, the network of Iran-aligned states, like Syria, and non-state actors that includes the Houthis in Yemen, Hizbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian groups like
Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The Iraqi groups took on the new name following Israel’s military campaign responding to Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel. The main
Iraqi groups in this coalition include Kata’ib Hizbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kata’ib Sayed al-Shuhada, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and the Badr Organisation. Close observers tell
Crisis Group that only the first three entities have participated in the latest attacks. So far, the latter two have confined themselves to cheering on the operations.

Sources close to the fighting say U.S. retaliatory strikes have hit only facilities belonging to Iraqi groups stationed near Abu Kamal, Syria, damaging refrigerator
trucks. The U.S. has not struck targets in Iraq, although many of the attacks on U.S. forces appear to have emanated from Iraq, with others conducted from inside
Syria. In this respect, the Biden administration has continued its recent pattern of refraining from striking groups in Iraq. Indeed, it has not even publicly attributed
strikes on U.S. forces to these groups. Its circumspection likely comes from a desire to maintain good relations with Baghdad. Washington wants to avoid a scenario
in which the Iraq government might come under domestic political pressure to demand that the U.S. pull its troops out of the country.

As in the past, the U.S. has offered only vague descriptions of the entities responsible for attacking U.S. forces. In October, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin
referred to the attackers simply as “Iran-backed militia groups”. Austin was also very general in his characterisation of who the U.S. struck in retaliation, describing
the targets as “two facilities in eastern Syria used by the IRGC and affiliated groups”. The Biden administration has not identified these “affiliated groups”. Although
Austin said the IRGC was using the facilities in question, the U.S. is clearly conscious of the risk of escalation and trying to guard against it. By all appearances, it has
tried to avoid harming either IRGC personnel or Iran-backed militia members in these most recent strikes, aiming instead to destroy facilities, although as noted
there may have been casualties in the 8 November strike.

Another regional actor that has attacked U.S. military assets is the Houthis – the insurgents who ousted Yemen’s internationally recognised government from the
capital, Sanaa, and are aligned with Iran. On 8 November, the Houthis shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone off Yemen’s Red Sea coast. The Houthis had previously
tried twice to lob missiles at Israel, with the USS Carney intercepting one on 19 October and Israel downing another on 31 October.

What is the background to these hostilities in Iraq?

An uneasy modus vivendi settled in between U.S. troops and Iran-backed militias in Iraq after President Barack Obama sent U.S. forces back to Iraq to combat ISIS in
2014, having withdrawn them just a few years before. Many of the militias belong to the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation), made up of masses of
fighters who answered the call of Shiite clerics in 2014 to rid Iraq of ISIS. Some of these groups and their members had previously fought the U.S. military when it
was present in Iraq from 2003 until 2011 – ie, the period following the U.S. invasion. U.S. and Hashd forces battled ISIS in parallel through 2017, both with the
sponsorship of the Iraqi government. The Iran-backed groups within the Hashd generally refrained from targeting U.S. troops, apparently at Tehran’s behest: Iran
and the U.S. shared the objective of eradicating ISIS.

This relationship between U.S. forces and Iran-backed groups – tense but not crossing the line into overt hostilities – began to unravel in 2018.

This relationship between U.S. forces and Iran-backed groups – tense but not crossing the line into overt
hostilities – began to unravel in 2018, following President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from
the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Frictions rose with Washington’s subsequent reimposition of sanctions on Iran as part of Trump’s “maximum pressure”
campaign and its decision in April 2019 to designate the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. In December 2019, a rocket attack on U.S. forces killed a U.S.
civilian contractor and injured four U.S. service members. The Trump administration blamed Kata’ib Hizbollah and retaliated with airstrikes on the group in both Iraq
and Syria. On 31 December 2019, Kata’ib Hizbollah and other Iran-backed militias organised a demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which turned
violent, inflicting significant damage on U.S. property.

Fighting between U.S. and Iran-backed forces in Iraq formed the backdrop for the 2 January 2020 U.S. airstrike that killed General Qassem Soleimani, head of the
IRGC’s elite Qods force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, founder and commander of Kata’ib Hizbollah, as well as leader of the Hashd. Within days, Iran replied with a
fusillade of ballistic missiles aimed at U.S. forces at al Ain al-Assad air base in western Iraq. Though Trump tweeted “All is well,”, the counterattack left more than
100 U.S. troops with traumatic brain injuries. The Pentagon later awarded dozens of these people with Purple Hearts – a decoration given to soldiers killed or
wounded in battle – for what Trump had downplayed as “headaches”.

Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, boasted that killing Soleimani had “restored deterrence”, but the record suggests otherwise. Attacks by Iran-backed
groups on U.S. forces in Iraq continued during the remainder of Trump’s time in office. In March 2020, a rocket attack on U.S. troops killed two U.S. soldiers,
prompting further retaliatory airstrikes on Kata’ib Hizbollah in Iraq, which the U.S. government blamed for the fatalities.

Frequent attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq also continued for the first year of President Joe Biden’s term as well, but then the situation
improved. By September 2022, groups in Iraq had begun to observe a unilateral truce with respect to U.S. forces in Iraq, an arrangement that became official when
the government of Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani was formed that November.

What is the background to the hostilities in Syria?

Hostilities between U.S. and Iran-backed groups in Syria also escalated during the Trump administration, with much of the fighting concentrated around the U.S.
military base at al-Tanf. In one particularly intense period of exchanges, in May and June 2017, the U.S. military repeatedly battled fighters supporting the Syrian
government, carrying out airstrikes on ground forces and shooting down two drones.

It is not clear what precise mission the U.S. troops at al-Tanf are intended to accomplish.

It is not clear what precise mission the U.S. troops at al-Tanf are intended to accomplish. Although Washington dispatched them as part of the counter-ISIS
campaign, by the end of 2018 they had little to do in that regard. The Pentagon wanted to remove them. But Iran hawks such as Pompeo and National Security

Advisor John Bolton advocated for keeping them there to counter Tehran. (In his memoir, Bolton writes “[Secretary of Defense James] Mattis was
sceptical of al-Tanf’s worth, probably because he was focused on ISIS rather than Iran. Iran was my main concern, and I stayed firm on al -Tanf throughout my time
as national security advisor”.)

Flare-ups between U.S. troops and Iran-backed militias in Syria continued after Trump left office. Prior to October, the
Biden administration had conducted four airstrikes on unspecified “Iran-backed militia groups” in Syria,
in retaliation for drone and rocket attacks on U.S. facilities. In justifying the strikes, which occurred in February and June 2021,
August 2022, and March 2023, the U.S. stated that “[t]hey were conducted in a manner intended to establish

deterrence”. Victoria Nuland, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, similarly referred to the deterrent intent behind prior strikes in a 28 September
2023 congressional hearing.
At the same time, the U.S. has not responded to every attack on its troops in Iraq and Syria. For example, during the period from January 2021 to March 2023 there
were 83 such attacks that did not result in retaliatory airstrikes, according to testimony by General Mark Milley, who was then chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Notably, the groups currently attacking U.S. forces are likely Iraqis operating in Syria.

Why are these hostilities between U.S. forces and Iran-backed groups happening now?

The spike in attacks on U.S. forces that began in October 2023 ended a lull believed to be part of
informal de-escalatory understandings between Washington and Tehran. The relative calm was a result of indirect
negotiations in Oman following the March 2023 attack by Iran-backed militias in Syria that had killed a U.S. service member. In September, U.S. officials

noted that more than a year had passed since the last attack on U.S. forces in Iraq, while in Syria there had been no attack since the tit-for-tat exchange in
March.

But that quickly changed in October. A week after Israel had launched its military campaign in Gaza, responding to Hamas’s 7 October attacks in Israel, Iran-backed
groups began targeting U.S. forces in both Syria and Iraq. In the past, attacks by Iran-backed groups on U.S. forces in Syria
(particularly at the al-Tanf garrison) have followed Israeli military actions in Syria or been part of
Tehran’s counter-pressure campaign against the U.S. in Iraq and/or Syria. But this time the trigger was clearly different.
The resumption of attacks coincided with the intensification of conflict in Gaza, occurring on the same day (17 October)

as a deadly blast at the al-Ahli hospital in the strip that many in the region blame (perhaps erroneously) on Israel. The renewed attacks on

U.S. forces, combined with claimed, attempted or confirmed attacks on Israel by groups in Lebanon,
Syria, Iraq and Yemen, suggests an effort by the “axis of resistance” to pressure Israel to scale back its operations in Gaza. The
groups behind the attacks appeared to be making an implicit threat that if Israel did not change course, they might open additional fronts

against the U.S., which they see as providing Israel with decisive support for its Gaza campaign.

Likely reflecting its desire to avoid regional escalation, the U.S. showed greater forbearance than usual by weathering twenty attacks by one count prior to
retaliating in October and a further twenty or more attacks before the subsequent counterstrike in November. But the recent harm to U.S. service members
(including traumatic brain injuries) and the U.S. contractor’s death from a heart attack – not to mention the sheer persistence of the drone and rocket fire at U.S.
bases – put the Biden administration in a position where it felt it had to respond.

Why does it matter?

Although the latest exchanges of fire between the U.S. and Iran-backed groups appear to be a return to the status quo that
preceded the de-escalatory understandings reached in Oman, their frequency and scope makes for a particularly dangerous

mix, particularly in the current tense environment. A miscalculation or a mishap could well lead to
significant escalation. For example, if U.S. forces begin to take significant casualties through further
strikes, direct U.S. retaliation against IRGC personnel is an entirely conceivable response. The resulting
dynamic might lead to a wider conflict between the U.S. and Israel, on one hand, and Iran and the “axis
of resistance”, whether this outcome serves either side’s interests or not.
Washington has both signalled to Tehran its desire to de-escalate and sought to project strength.

Washington has both signalled to Tehran its desire to de-escalate and sought to project strength. As the strikes on U.S. forces proceeded, it reportedly tried
to warn Tehran to discontinue them. It has also made clear that it holds Iran responsible for attacks on U.S. forces,
whether conducted by state forces or Iran-supported groups. In announcing the 26 October and 8 November rounds of retaliatory strikes, the Biden administration
additionally raised the ante rhetorically by publicly drawing a connection between its targets and the Iranian state – referring to “facilities used by the IRGC and
IRGC-affiliated groups”.
If attacks on U.S. forces persist, and particularly if U.S. casualties mount, the Biden
administration may feel compelled to ratchet up its response again. In response to an armed drone crashing into a U.S.
barracks at Erbil air base in Iraq (but not exploding) on 25 October, a U.S. defencse official noted, “They’re aiming to kill. We have just been lucky”. That luck may
eventually run out.

Middle east instability spirals — global war.

Klare 18 – [Michael, Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College
in Amherst, Massachusetts. “Gearing Up for the Third Gulf War.” Common Dreams.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/05/14/gearing-third-gulf-war, May 14, 2018] TDI
A Third Gulf War would distinguish itself from recent Middle Eastern conflicts by the geographic span of
the fighting and the number of major actors that might become involved. In all likelihood, the field of
battle would stretch from the shores of the Mediterranean, where Lebanon abuts Israel, to the Strait of
Hormuz, where the Persian Gulf empties into the Indian Ocean. Participants could include , on one side, Iran,
the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and assorted Shia militias in Iraq and Yemen; and, on
the other, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). If the fighting in Syria
were to get out of hand, Russian forces could even become involved. All of these forces have been equipping
themselves with massive arrays of modern weaponry in recent years, ensuring that any fighting will be
intense, bloody, and horrifically destructive. Iran has been acquiring an assortment of modern weapons from Russia and
possesses its own substantial arms industry. It, in turn, has been supplying the Assad regime with modern arms and is suspected of shipping an
array of missiles and other munitions to Hezbollah. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have long been major recipients of tens of billions of
dollars of sophisticated American weaponry and President Trump has promised to supply them with so much more. This means that, once
ignited, a Third Gulf War could quickly escalate and would undoubtedly generate large numbers of
civilian and military casualties, and new flows of refugees. The United States and its allies would try to quickly cripple Iran’s
war-making capabilities, a task that would require multiple waves of air and missile strikes, some surely directed at facilities in densely
populated areas. Iran and its allies would seek to respond by attacking high-value targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia, including cities and oil
facilities. Iran’s Shia allies in Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere could be expected to launch attacks of their own on the U.S.-led alliance. Where all this
would lead, once such fighting began, is of course impossible to predict, but the history of the twenty-first century suggests that, whatever
happens, it won’t follow the carefully laid plans of commanding generals (or their civilian overseers) and won’t
end either expectably or well. Precisely what kind of incident or series of events would ignite a war of this
sort is similarly unpredictable. Nonetheless, it seems obvious that the world is moving ever closer to a moment when the right (or
perhaps the better word is wrong) spark could set off a chain of events leading to full-scale hostilities in the Middle East in the wake of
President Trump’s recent rejection of the nuclear deal. It’s possible, for instance, to imagine a clash between Israeli and
Iranian military contingents in Syria sparking such a conflict. The Iranians, it is claimed, have set up bases there both to support
the Assad regime and to funnel arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon. On May 10th, Israeli jets struck several such sites, following a missile barrage on
the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights said to have been launched by Iranian soldiers in Syria. More Israeli strikes certainly lie in our future as Iran
presses its drive to establish and control a so-called land bridge through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. Another possible spark could involve
collisions or other incidents between American and Iranian naval vessels in the Persian Gulf, where the two navies frequently approach each
other in an aggressive manner. Whatever
the nature of the initial clash, rapid escalation to full-scale hostilities
could occur with very little warning. All of this begs a question: Why are the United States and its allies in the region moving ever closer to another major war in
the Persian Gulf? Why now? The Geopolitical Impulse The first two Gulf Wars were driven, to a large extent, by the geopolitics of oil. After World War II, as the United States became
increasingly dependent on imported sources of petroleum, it drew ever closer to Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil producer. Under the Carter Doctrine of January 1980, the U.S. pledged for
the first time to use force, if necessary, to prevent any interruption in thse flow of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to this country and its allies. Ronald Reagan, the first president to
implement that doctrine, authorized the "reflagging" of Saudi and Kuwaiti oil tankers with the stars and stripes during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War that began in 1980 and their protection by
the U.S. Navy. When Iranian gunboats menaced such tankers, American vessels drove them off in incidents that represented the first actual military clashes between the U.S. and Iran. At the
time, President Reagan put the matter in no uncertain terms: “The use of the sea lanes of the Persian Gulf will not be dictated by the Iranians.” Oil geopolitics also figured prominently in the
U.S. decision to intervene in the First Gulf War. When Iraqi forces occupied Kuwait in August 1990 and appeared poised to invade Saudi Arabia, President George H.W. Bush announced that
the U.S. would send forces to defend the kingdom and so played out the Carter Doctrine in real time. “Our country now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to
its economic independence,” he declared, adding that “the sovereign independence of Saudi Arabia is of vital interest to the United States.” Although the oil dimension of U.S. strategy was less
obvious in President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in March 2003, it was still there. Members of his inner circle, especially Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that Iraqi ruler
Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the safety of Persian Gulf oil lanes and needed to be eliminated. Others in the administration were eager to pursue the prospect of privatizing Iraq’s state-
owned oil fields and turning them over to American oil companies (a notion that evidently stuck in Donald Trump’s mind, as he repeatedly asserted during the 2016 election campaign that “we
should have kept the oil”). Today, oil has receded, if not entirely disappeared, as a major factor in Persian Gulf geopolitics, while other issues have moved to the fore. Of greatest significance in
animating the current military standoff is an escalating struggle for regional dominance between Iran and Saudi Arabia (with a nuclear-armed Israel lurking in the wings). Both countries view
themselves as the hub of a network of like-minded states and societies -- Iran as the leader of the region’s Shia populations, Saudi Arabia of its Sunnis -- and both resent any gains by the other.
To complicate matters, President Trump, clearly harboring deep antipathy toward the Iranians, has chosen to side with the Saudis big league (as he might say), while Benjamin Netanyahu’s
Israel, fearing Iranian advances in the region, has opted to weigh in on the Saudi side of the equation in a major way as well. The result, as suggested by military historian Andrew Bacevich, is
the “inauguration of a Saudi-American-Israeli axis” and a “major realignment of U.S. strategic relationships.” Several key factors explain this transition from an oil-centric strategy emphasizing
military power to a more conventional struggle among regional rivals that has already deeply embroiled the planet’s last superpower. To begin with, America’s reliance on imported oil has
diminished rapidly in recent years, thanks to an oil drilling revolution in the U.S. that has allowed the massive exploitation of domestic shale reserves through the process of fracking. As a
result, access to Persian Gulf supplies matters far less in Washington than it did in previous decades. In 2001, according to oil giant BP, the United States relied on imports for 61% of its net oil
consumption; by 2016, that share had dropped to 37% and was still falling -- and yet the U.S. remains deeply involved in the region as a decade and a half of unending war, counterinsurgency,
drone strikes, and other kinds of strife sadly indicate. By invading and occupying Iraq in 2003, Washington also eliminated a major bulwark of Sunni power, a country led by Saddam Hussein
who, two decades earlier, had been siding with the U.S. in opposing Iran. That invasion, ironically enough, had the effect of expanding Shiite influence and making Iran the major -- possibly the
only -- winner in the years of war that followed. Some Western analysts believe that the greatest tragedy of the invasion, from a geopolitical point of view, was the ascension of Shiite
politicians with close ties to Tehran in post-Hussein Iraq. Although that country’s current leaders appear intent on pursuing a path of their own in the post-ISIS moment, many powerful Iraqi
Shiite militias -- including some that played key roles in driving Islamic State militants out of Mosul and other major cities -- retain close ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. While disasters in
themselves, the wars in Syria and Yemen have only added additional complexity to the geopolitical chessboard on which Washington found itself after that invasion and from which it has
never extricated itself. In Syria, Iran has chosen to ally with Vladimir Putin’s Russia to preserve the brutal Assad regime, providing it with arms, funds, and an unknown number of advisers from
the Revolutionary Guards. Hezbollah, a Shiite political group in Lebanon with a significant military wing, has sent large numbers of its own fighters to Syria to help Assad’s forces. In Yemen, the
Iranians are believed to be providing arms and missile technology to the Houthis, a homegrown Shiite rebel group that now controls the northern half of the country, including the capital,
Sana’a. The Saudis, in turn, have been playing an ever more active role in bolstering their military power and protecting embattled Sunni communities throughout the region. Seeking to resist
and reverse what they view as Iranian advances, they have helped armmilitias of an extreme sort and evidently even al-Qaeda-associated groups under attack from Iranian-backed Shiite forces
in Iraq and Syria. In 2015, in the case of Yemen, they organized a coalition of Sunni Arab states to crush the Houthi rebels in a brutal war that has included a blockade of the country, helping to
produce mass famine and a relentless American-backed air campaign, which often hits civilian targets including markets, schools, and weddings. This combination has helped produce an
estimated 10,000 civilian deaths and a singular humanitarian crisis in that already impoverished country. In response to these developments, the Obama administration sought to calm the
situation by negotiating a nuclear deal with the Iranians and by holding out the promise of increased economic ties with the West in return for reduced assertiveness outside its borders. Such a
strategy never, however, won the support of Israel or Saudi Arabia. And in the Obamayears, Washington continued to support both of those countries in a major way, including supplying
massive amounts of military equipment, refueling Saudi planes in midair so they could strike deeper into Yemen, and providing the Saudis with targeting intelligence for their disastrous war.
The Anti-Iranian Triumvirate All of these regional developments, in play before Donald Trump was elected, have only gained added momentum since then, thanks in no small degree to the
pivotal personalities involved. The first of them, of course, is President Trump. Throughout his election campaign, he regularly denounced the nuclear deal that Iran, the U.S., Britain, France,
Germany, Russia, China, and the European Union all signed onto in July 2015. Officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement forced Iran to suspend its
uranium enrichment program in return for the lifting of all nuclear-related sanctions. It was a plan that Iran scrupulously adhered to. Although President Obama, many senior American
policymakers, and most European leaders had argued that the JCPOA -- whatever its flaws -- provided a valuable constraint on Iran’s nuclear (and so other) ambitions, Trump consistently
denounced it as a “terrible deal” because it failed to eliminate every last vestige of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure or ban that country’s missile program. “This deal was a disaster,” he told
David Sanger of the New York Times in March 2016. While Trump, who has filled his administration with Iranophobes, including his new secretary of state and new national security adviser,
seems to harbor a primeval animosity toward the Iranians, perhaps because they don’t treat him with the adoration he feels he deserves, he has a soft spot for the Saudi royals, who do. In
May 2017, on his first trip abroad as president, he traveled to Riyadh, where he performed a sword dance with Saudi princes and immersed himself in the sort of ostentatious displays of
wealth only oil potentates can provide. While in Riyadh, he conferred at length with then-Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 31-year-old son of King Salman and a key architect
of Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical contest with the Iranians. Prince Mohammed, who serves as the Saudi defense minister and was named crown prince in June 2017, is the prime mover behind the
kingdom’s (so far unsuccessful) drive to crush the Houthi rebels in Yemen and is known to harbor fierce anti-Iranian views. At an earlier White House luncheon in March 2017, bin Salman, or
MBS as he’s sometimes known, and President Trump seemed to reach an implicit agreement on a common strategy for branding Iran a regional threat, tearing up the nuclear agreement, and
so setting the stage for an eventual war to vanquish that country or at least to fell the regime that runs it. While in Riyadh, President Trump told a conference of Sunni Arab leaders that, “from
Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. It is a government that speaks
openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death of America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this very room.” While no doubt gratifying to the Saudis, Emiratis, Kuwaitis,
and other Sunni rulers listening, those words echoed the views of the third key player in the strategic triumvirate that may soon drive the region into all-out war, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, also known as “Bibi.” For years, he has railed against Iranian ambitions in the region and threatened military action against any Iranian move that would, as he saw it,
impinge on Israeli security. Now, in Trump and the Saudi Crown Prince, he has the allies of his dreams. In the Obama years, Netanyahu was a fierce opponent of the Iranian nuclear deal and
used a rare appearance before a joint session of Congress in March 2015 to denounce it in no uncertain terms. He has never -- right up to the days before Trump withdrew from the accord --
stopped working to persuade the president that the agreement should be junked and Iran targeted. In that 2015 speech to Congress, Netanyahu laid out a vision of Iran as a systemic danger
that would later be appropriated by Trump and his Saudi confederates in Riyadh. “Iran's regime poses a grave threat, not only to Israel, but also the peace of the entire world,” he asserted in a
typically hyperbolic statement. “Backed by Iran, Assad is slaughtering Syrians. Backed by Iran, Shiite militias are rampaging through Iraq. Backed by Iran, Houthis are seizing control of Yemen,
threatening the strategic strait at the mouth of the Red Sea. Along with the Straits of Hormuz, that would give Iran a second choke-point on the world’s oil supply.” Now, Netanyahu is playing a
major role in driving the already crippled region into a war that could further destroy it, produce yet more terror groups (and terrorized civilians), and create havoc on a potentially global scale,

Pay attention to the words of Netanyahu in Washington and Donald

given that both Russia and China back the Iranians. Girding for War

Trump in Riyadh. Think of them not as political rhetoric, but as prophesies of a grim kind. You’re going to be
hearing a lot more such prophesies in the months ahead as the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia move closer to war with Iran and its
allies. While
ideology and religion will play a part in what follows, the underlying impetus is a geopolitical
struggle for control of the greater Persian Gulf region, with all its riches, between two sets of countries,
each determined to prevail. No one can say with certainty when, or even if, these powerful forces will produce a devastating new
war or set of wars in the Middle East. Other considerations -- an unexpected flare-up on the Korean Peninsula if President Trump’s talks with
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un end in failure, a fresh crisis with Russia, a global economic meltdown -- could turn attention elsewhere, lessening the
importance of the geopolitical contest in the Persian Gulf. New leadership in any of the key countries could similarly lead to a change of course.
Netanyahu, for example, is now at risk of losing power because of an ongoing Israeli police investigation into allegedly corrupt acts of his, and
Trump, well, who can say? Without such a development or developments, however, the
way to war, which will surely prove to
be the road to hell, seems open with a Third Gulf War looming on humanity’s horizon.

Withdrawal ends provocative military presence and avoids entanglement

Brownlee 11/27 [(Jason, is a professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches about and conducts
research on U.S. military intervention, dictatorships, and dissent, with a focus on the politics of South Asia and the Middle East), “US Troops In
Iraq And Syria Aren't 'Keeping The Peace'”, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-troops-in-iraq-and-syria/, Nov 27 2023] SS

The regional reverberations of the Israel-Gaza war demonstrate why the

White House should scrap, not reinforce, America’s outdated and unnecessarily provocative troop
presence in Syria and Iraq.

President Joe Biden should redeploy

these forces to a safer position offshore and leave it to self-interested Syrians
and Iraqis to prevent ISIS from reemerging. As Biden’s own policy on Afghanistan demonstrated — and as I observed on the ground earlier
this fall — withdrawing U.S. soldiers and Marines can bolster American security by turning the fight against

Islamic State over to well-motivated local belligerents while freeing up U.S. personnel to serve in more
vital areas.
Likewise, pivoting
out of Syria and Iraq will not make Americans any less safe, but it will deny local militias,
and their presumptive patrons in Iran, the chance to use unneeded outposts for leverage over our
national strategy.

Since October 17, some 900

U.S. troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq have been taking fire from Iran-linked militias
and, subsequently, drawing retaliatory air support, including an attack by a C-130 gunship that killed
eight members of the Kataib Hezbollah group in Iraq last week. The U.S. service members are the lingering footprint of
Operation Inherent Resolve, which began in 2015 to defeat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and succeeded in 2019 in eliminating the physical ISIS caliphate,
thereby reducing ISIS to “a survival posture” without territory.

Rather than taking the win and packing up, the Trump and Biden administrations kept in place some
troops, who have become a recurring target of opportunity for Iran and its surrogates during moments
of tension. In the past five weeks, the Iran-linked militants’ rockets and one-way attack drones have injured over
sixty of these Americans.

The prolonged American deployment, driven by policy inertia more than strategic necessity, has added
tinder to a potential U.S.-Iranian conflagration that would eclipse the Israel-Gaza War. One Pentagon official has
remarked in defiance, “Iran’s objective… has been to force a withdrawal of the U.S. military from the region… What I would observe is that we’re still there [in Iraq
and Syria].”

This reluctance to relinquish former ISIS territory to independently-minded governments recapitulates the mindset that made the Afghanistan
and Iraq
wars so unnecessarily costly. Rather than cutting its losses, the White House and Pentagon have doubled down,
with two aircraft carrier groups in the Eastern Mediterranean, an airstrike on an Iran-linked weapons
depot in Syria, and an additional 1,200 troops for staffing regional air defenses, and now strikes inside
Iraq — over the objections of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani , whose coalition is linked to Kataib
Hezbollah.

When it comes to escalating or winding down U.S. military interventions, the deciding factor should not be what Iran’s leaders want in largely deserted corners of
Iraq and Syria, but what policies best serve American interests. On this question, Biden’s controversial decision in 2021 to pull all U.S. forces from Afghanistan offers
an important lesson. As I have seen firsthand, complete withdrawal
can serve Washington’s counterterrorism and strategic
goals, even if the policy cedes physical terrain to governments with which U.S. officials do not see eye to
eye.
When the Israel-Gaza war broke out the weekend of October 7, I was wrapping up an uneventful three weeks of visiting what were once the deadliest zones of America’s recent wars: Kabul, Kandahar, and Helmand provinces in Afghanistan; and the cities of Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi, and Mosul in Iraq. I traversed dozens of Taliban and Iraqi government checkpoints, as I toured cities
and rural areas without any sense of threat from officials or terrorists. The physical security I experienced in both countries dispels the most common fear about withdrawing American troops, that exiting will increase the danger to Americans and our interests while strategically advantaging recalcitrant governments.

It is difficult to overstate the level of internal stability Afghanistan has enjoyed since August 2021. In the wake of America’s flawed evacuation from Kabul airport, analysts and policymakers expected the country to implode and spread armed conflict onto its neighbors and the world. Instead, political violence in Afghanistan plummeted by 80% in the first year after American forces
left.

Crucially, the Taliban’s security forces curbed the threat of mass-casualty attacks by Islamic State’s local offshoot, accomplishing in a matter of months what the Pentagon and CIA had been trying to achieve since 2015. While yes they are under the thumb of the oppressive Taliban regime, Afghans are experiencing their longest respite from war since the Soviet Army invaded on
Christmas Eve 1979.

Meanwhile, U.S. forces that would be committed to high-risk, low-reward combat missions in land-locked Afghanistan are available for “deterring and responding to great-power aggression.”

If the Taliban can hobble Islamic State’s operations in an impoverished agrarian country with a supposedly “weak and failing state” ripe for transnational jihadism, there is every reason to expect the armed forces of Syria and Iraq can be equally effective. The Syrian military, backed not only by Iran but also Russia, has the wherewithal and materiel to deal with the dead-enders of
ISIS’s defunct caliphate.

Next door, last year’s spike in oil prices allowed Baghdad to adopt the largest budget in its history, including $23 billion for the security sector. Further, I can report that the roadways of Iraq are festooned with billboards of the “martyred” Iranian special forces commander Qasem Soleimani. His ubiquitous visage, in addition to al-Sudani’s high-profile visit to Tehran after Secretary of
State Blinken’s furtive November 5 drop-in, puts paid to the idea that American boots on the ground can “check Iranian influence” in Iraq or other Shia-led states such as Syria.

ISIS has long since been defeated and Operation Inherent Resolve should be shuttered at the first
opportunity. The August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan offers a vivid — if unexpected — precedent
for making this timely and prudent shift. This further demonstrates that letting local actors handle Islamic
State fighters — and whatever lands those jihadists claimed — will not empower America’s challengers, but can
enable a nimbler U.S. foreign policy.