Troops out, Patriots in: Washington’s new defensive footing in Iraq

Amid an ongoing standoff with Iran and its militia proxies, the United States has deployed Patriot air defense missiles to Iraq while consolidating its troops in fewer bases. 

Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia, had repeatedly targeted Iraqi military bases hosting US troops with short-range Katyusha surface-to-surface rockets. 

Although the rockets seldom found their mark, there have been a handful of casualties. 

One attack attributed to the group killed an American civilian contractor on December 27, and another barrage on March 11 killed two US personnel and one British soldier. 

The US responded to both attacks with airstrikes.  

On January 3, a US drone strike killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ extraterritorial Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Kataib Hezbollah’s leader.

Iran retaliated on January 8 with a barrage of ballistic missiles fired directly at US bases in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. 

No American servicemen were killed, but several stationed at Al-Asad airbase in Anbar reportedly suffered traumatic brain injuries of varying severity. 

None of the missiles were intercepted before they reached their target because the bases were not equipped with long-range air defence systems. 

Cue the Patriot deployment. 

The ‘political and kinetic’ strategy

Despite the worldwide shift in attention toward combating the coronavirus, tensions between the US and Iran’s proxies in Iraq remain high and conflict could flare up at any time. 

Nicholas Heras, the Middle East Security Program Manager at the Institute for the Study of War, told Rudaw English that Iran’s proxies are pursuing a twin-fronted strategy to force the US out of Iraq.

“Iran’s Iraqi proxies are applying additional pressure on the US military in Iraq at a time when the US is executing pre-planned consolidation of forces to create the impression that Iran and its proxies are the reason the US military is leaving bases in Iraq,” Heras said.

The campaign was designed by Qasem Soleimani, he argues, “to lead to the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq through both political and kinetic means.”

Iran’s strategy has been to exert ongoing pressure on US installations in Iraq through rocket attacks, which “are difficult for the US to defend against because low-grade rockets and mortars are very challenging to stop”.

Simultaneously, on the political front, Iran’s Iraqi proxies are “actively using the long and drawn-out political process to determine Iraq’s next prime minister to get the Iraqi government to force the US from Iraq,” Heras said.

“Iran needs to keep the military conflict with the US in Iraq under a certain threshold of violence or else risk US military reprisals inside Iran itself,” he added.

Will Patriot missiles counter the threat?

The Patriot batteries the US has deployed to Al-Asad and in the Kurdistan Region are intended to shield US troops against large long-range Iranian ballistic missiles, like those used on January 8. 

The missiles are being deployed with additional interceptors designed to shoot down far smaller short-range projectiles – namely Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar (C-RAM) systems and AN/TWQ-1 Avenger short-range air defense missiles systems.

“The deployment of C-RAM is, in many ways, more significant than the arrival of the Patriots,” Michael Knights, a noted Iraq expert and Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute, told Rudaw English.

C-RAMs are designed to guard against drones and small rockets rather than the large ballistic missiles. Consequently, those systems will prove much more effective in shielding US troops from the short-range projectiles of the kind used by Kataib Hezbollah.

“It made sense to bring the Patriots along to Iraq, even though I suspect the C-RAMs were the real focus,” Knights added.

Non-state actors across the Middle East have made significant strides in the development of armed drones. In Syria, a drone swarm even attempted to bomb Russia’s airbase in Latakia in January 2018.  

Any similar attack targeting US bases in Iraq would first have to penetrate a formidable layer of C-RAM and Avenger defenses.

Shiite militias in Iraq say they hope to develop an indigenous drone capability, devising units that can be assembled in someone’s living room.  

The Islamic State (ISIS) group showcased a primitive – although progressively sophisticated – capability of weaponizing drones that are cheap and readily available on the commercial market.  

It would be counterproductive to rely on multi-million-dollar Patriot missiles alone to target such inexpensive pilotless aircraft. C-RAMs and Avengers are, therefore, a far more cost-effective way of neutralizing such threats.

The Patriots and their accompanying systems may also be needed longer-term to defend US troops against military-grade drones and precision-guided rockets if Iran provides such weaponry to its Iraqi proxies. 

Tehran reportedly began equipping its Iraqi proxies with short-range missiles in 2018, although no such missiles have ever been used in militia attacks against US forces to date.  

“The Iranians may also consider providing Iraqi proxies with suicide drones such as the Ababil model that the Houthis in Yemen have effectively operated,” Heras said. 

“If used with swarm tactics, this could lead to potentially devastating attacks on US forces in Iraq.” 

Knights also pointed out that Iran supplied the Houthis in Yemen with increasingly more powerful and sophisticated drones alongside precision-guided rockets. Tehran would also do the same in Iraq “if observers take their attention off the issue.”

“Only powerful US and Israeli surveillance of Iraq has prevented Iran from supplying large numbers of sophisticated strike systems already.”