The Tower 22 Attack, And Other Messes In The Middle East.
Is this finally casus belli? Or just something to be swept under a (Persian) rug?
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The Attack On Tower 22.
Note: I’m writing this for a general audience at various levels of familiarity with the Middle East. There’s going to be a lot of simplification, and so apologies to all the IR / CT wonks in advance.
In the most recent issue of Business Thoughts, I’d written, of western countries’ response to the Red Sea conflict, itself as extension of the Gaza conflict, the following:
This’ll be ongoing, low-intensity, and indulgent of Iran’s fig leaf that it’s not truly the one behind the entire mess currently engulfing the Middle East.
But if there’s anything that’s true of writing about the geopolitics of the Middle East, it’s that it’s very often a humbling experience. And in this instance, I may have to eat those very words quoted above.
Three days ago, on 28 January 2024, an unmanned “suicide drone” attacked a US base in Jordan, killing 3 servicemembers and wounding 40. The attacked base is called “Tower 22,” and is a small installation in the tri-border region of Jordan, Syria and Iraq. Tower 22 is part of a network of US installations in the region (both in Jordan and elsewhere) which exist, at least primarily, for the purpose of combating the ongoing threat posed by ISIS.
So, whodunit? If you’re thinking Iran, you’re right…sort of. The DOD’s confirmed that it’s an Iran-backed militia, and they suspect, at this point, that it’s Kata’ib Hezbollah (referred to commonly as "KH”). But who are these guys?
From the outset, it’s important to distinguish KH from what we commonly know as Hezbollah. Hezbollah was formed in Lebanon in the 1980s in the wake of the 1982 Lebanon War, and is primarily concerned with the affairs of Lebanon / the conflict in southern Lebanon vs. Israel. KH, on the other hand, is a much newer organization, founded in 2003 in Iraq after the US invasion. Their goal is the creation of an Iran-aligned Iraq, and to this end, they’ve actually fought against ISIS. This hardly paints them in any sort of favorable light, however, as their actions during the Iraqi insurgency, from roughly 2007 onwards, led to a number of US, coalition and civilian casualties. However, the one incident that sticks out—at least in my mind—wasn’t casualty-related at all, but was rather the hacking of unencrypted video feeds of US Predator drones above Iraq, back in late 2009.1
Anyway, so, this was likely KH, and was definitely Iran-sponsored, and we’re now left with the gaping question of why? Getting to the bottom of that is going to be tough to do succinctly, but I’ll try.
So, Syria has been in a state of civil war since early 2011, when protests against the government of Bashar Al-Assad hit a boiling point. Assad had been a thorn in the side of the US, other western countries, and their GCC allies for a while at that point, and so these nations supported the newly formed rebel forces such as the Free Syrian Army. Assad wasn’t without international support either, though, and the Syrian government received military and other aid from Iran and Russia (the latter, quite significantly) to help crush the rebellion. Without going too far into it, what I’m trying to convey here is that Syria was (and still is) chaos. And chaos is fertile ground for terrorists.
While all that was going on, in 2014, ISIS made great strides in seizing and holding territory, mostly in eastern Syria and western Iraq. The US government, of course, wouldn’t stand for that, and so it launched an aerial bombing campaign against ISIS as part of CJTF-OIR, or what we’ll refer to as “Operation Inherent Resolve.” Operation Inherent Resolve continues through today, as ISIS also continues to pose a regional threat. Vital to Operation Inherent Resolve are various military installations in the tri-border region, including (perhaps most importantly) Al-Tanf, which is inside Syria. Now, bases located inside hostile countries / warzones need to be supplied, and ideally from installations that are not in warzones and in places that are allied to the US. One such is Tower 22, within the borders of US-allied Jordan. Are things starting to make a bit more sense? Just wait.2
Starting in the fall of 2023, in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing Gaza conflict, US forces in the tri-border region have come under repeated attacks from Iran-backed militias, including, prominently, KH. The recent attack, while a big news item at present, is really just the latest in a string of incidents, some more successful for their perpetrators than others. The deaths of 3 US servicemembers certainly adds to the pressure on the US government to take decisive action against Iran, but it’s not as though this pressure is new, or of a sudden onset.
It’s also easy to get muddled here. Given the timing (i.e., coming relatively shortly after the Houthi attack on merchant and US naval assets in the Red Sea), the tactics deployed (i.e., unmanned “suicide drone” strike) and the underlying state sponsor (i.e., Iran), it’s easy to connect dots to indicate a clear escalation by Iran that would warrant escalation in response by the US. Accurate analysis here I think requires a lot of information to which the general public doesn’t have access (e.g., intercepts, intelligence work product, etc.), and it’s tough to say whether the latest attack was something of a fluke success or a step-up in capabilities / tactics / strategy, etc. It’s likely all-hands at the DIA—and the wider US & Coalition intelligence community—until all that gets figured out.
So, what next? Do we just rip off the Band-Aid and enter into open conflict with Iran? Probably not. For one, as Jason Lyons points out on this episode of The Team House podcast, the *one* country that has a history of going into Iran and getting stuff done, Israel, is a little tied up with something else at the moment. I’m not sure what the Israeli appetite is for a conflict in Iran at the moment, given the ongoing conflict in Gaza, but I doubt Israel will forget anytime soon that it was Iran behind the Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023. I do wonder if Israel being tied up in Gaza factored into the Iranian calculus in supporting the attacks in the Red Sea, the tri-border region, etc. at this point in time, and I suspect the answer is yes. However, on the other hand, the US certainly doesn’t need Israeli support to escalate against Iran, and so Israel’s potential unavailability at the moment isn’t really dispositive of anything.
Concerning a different US ally in the region, my first take upon hearing of the incident—recited only to my wife while driving through a snowstorm—was about how this would affect relationship dynamics between the US and Jordan. With the at least overt responsibility of providing security for US forces operating on its soil, Jordan has likely found itself in the hot seat. Initially adopting the “Shaggy Defense,” an official government spokesperson tried to claim that the fatal attack on US troops took place in Syria, and not inside Jordan. Once details emerged and maps got circulated, the Jordanians had to walk that one back. Now, Jordan has been a long-time ally of the United States in the region, but it’s not hard to imagine that Jordan, for its own interests, is wary of outright war with Iran. Furthermore, the Jordanian government has recently been vocal in asking the US to increase its anti-missile security posture within the country, specifically requesting the deployment of Patriot air defense systems. So, maybe the pressure cuts both ways here.
When asked whether the US would respond, President Biden has indicated “yes,” without providing any further details. So, for right now, it’s just a matter of waiting and seeing.
Ed. Note: Just after the above was written, the White House made a formal announcement that attributed the attack to an umbrella organization, the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” which includes KH, among other groups. Over recent months, KH has been behind some strikes against US forces in the regions, and other groups have been behind other strikes. My take: attributing it to the umbrella rather than specifically to one constituent group yields more latitude for retaliatory actions.
Bonus Hits
So, that was long, and typically I’d just cap it there with that one story for this issue. But, I did have a couple of other (topical) things on my mind, so here goes:
More Boeing Stuff
So, is it that bad things keep happening to Boeing, or has Boeing been a badly run company for a while and now the chickens are coming home to roost? Is it just that these sorts of things happen from time to time, and because right now Boeing’s in the spotlight, these stories are getting the most clicks? Who’s to say! The wheel-falling-off story might just be a maintenance issue on an older plane, but it’s a jaw-dropping headline nonetheless. Airline CEOs had already been having issues with Boeing, and it seems that in the wake of the MAX 9 door-plug issue, they’re increasingly becoming Airbus-curious. But it’s not as though Airbus has been without its issues as well. So, what then? Is this generation of airplane mechanics just not cut out for the job? Can we just blame social media and call it a day?
Social Media Hazards
Speaking of social media, Congress—in a display of rare bipartisan cooperation—just finished raking various social media company executives over the coals because of the dangers posed by social media to children and teenagers. I felt sort of strange, watching it all happen. On one hand, the stories of what the affected families have been through were horrible; on the other, the whole thing felt kind of like what Congress must have been like just before enacting Prohibition, or maybe in the throes of the Red Scare.
To me, social media is a real double-edged sword. For example, for marketing purposes, social media has been a great democratizing force between small and large businesses, giving the small guys the opportunity to reach a wide audience without needing the budget of a big guy. On the other hand, cyberbullying has led to child and teen suicides in a way that “analog” bullying, well, perhaps didn’t. And apparently, kids are using SnapChat to buy drugs? Maybe this makes me old, but that’s not one I thought of before I read it in media coverage.
But okay, putting their political media stunt aside, what does Congress actually intend to do about it? What can it do about it? What might a “social media law” even look like?
*cracks knuckles*
So, technically, under the Terms of Use of the various social media platforms, one has to be above a certain age (13 for some, 18 for others) to sign up for an account. The trouble is, verification works on the honor system. “Type in your birthday here.” And that’s it. It’s the same way we currently “stop” kids from logging on to such harmful websites as greygoose.com. But, unless someone on the marketing team’s had a *really* bad day, no one’s getting cyberbullied on greygoose.com. You can’t buy drugs on greygoose.com. You can’t even buy Grey Goose on greygoose.com. And where you can buy it—a liquor store—you need to show ID. So sure, while a kid can fake a birthday entry and look at pretty pictures of vodka bottles, I’m not sure that that’s necessarily the right strategy to stop them from logging on to the internet’s cesspool various social media platforms.
But what, then? Are we going to require ID verification to create an Instagram account? I could see how, without thinking about it too much, a proposal like that might make enough sense to wind its way through some legislative drafting. But think about the effect on the platform: Your favorite meme account? Gone. Your dog’s account? Gone. Your second / backup / family account? Gone. And that would kind of suck.3 Also, think of the data processing requirements this would place on platform operators, not just in terms of servers and storage, but also regulatory compliance (hi there, GDPR). And sure, while this might currently be happening for “paid verified” accounts on platforms like Instagram and Twitter (“X,” whatever), I don’t think that that represents a sizeable portion of total users.
On the other hand, I don’t think a “blame the parents” approach is right here either. I’m not a parent yet, but I’m currently passing kidney stones over the idea of having a child with a smartphone. There’s just a lot of world out there on that device, and in a contest between parental controls settings and the ingenuity of kids, only stupid money bets on controls.
If you’re waiting for me to drop a solution here, no joy. I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now, and systematically torn through every idea I’ve had thus far. This issue is at the intersection of technology and law, which, professionally, is where I basically live. So, if you’re a regular reader of Business Thoughts, chances are we’ll come back to this topic once I have something worth saying. But this is all for now.
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If you ask me, for whatever my opinion’s worth, the drone-hacking incident was as much a US / American defense contractor “own goal” as it was a victory for KH. There’s that line about underestimating your enemies at your own peril…
For those paying attention, yes, KH is an enemy of ISIS, and yes, the *primary* purpose of Operation Inherent Resolve is to cripple ISIS, but in the larger context of Iran’s opposition to US involvement in the Middle East, that all just doesn’t seem to matter.
The idea of being able to use one ID to create multiple accounts (e.g., Rex Chatterjee’s ID can be used to create @rexchatterjee and @masonchatterjeethedog (not a real account; don’t tempt me)) creates a hazard akin to being in high school and waiting around in front of the convenience store for an older person to go in and buy beer for you (which I know about only in hypothetical terms).