Iran backed into a corner, says retired US CENTCOM commander

WASHINGTON DC - A retired American general said that Iran’s missile attack on Israel this week was the desperate act of a country that has “no really good choices.”

“I think the attack on Israel, of two nights ago, really demonstrates Iran's desperation. They're backed into a corner… They have no really good choices,” General Kenneth McKenzie, retired, told Rudaw on Friday. 

McKenzie oversaw United States military operations in the Middle East as CENTCOM commander from 2019 to 2022.

Iran’s “principal ally in the region, Lebanese Hezbollah, is ineffective and not able to help them. So that attack that you saw a couple of nights ago was an attempt to try to just lash out and do something, anything,” he said.

On Tuesday, Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel, saying the attack was in retaliation for Israeli aggression, just days after Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. This was the second time Iran directly targeted Israel. The first was in April when it launched more than 300 drones and missiles in retaliation for a deadly Israeli attack on Tehran’s consulate in Syria.

“That attack failed, as did the April attack,” Mckenzie said, arguing that Iran is a less secure country today “than they were two or three days ago.”

Israel has vowed to respond to Iran’s attack. US President Joe Biden said his administration is discussing possible response options with Israel.

Armed groups in Iraq that are aligned with Iran and opposed to Israel have been blamed for a drone attack that killed two Israeli soldiers. The Israeli Defense Forces announced on Friday that the two were killed by a drone launched from Iraq on Thursday that hit a base in the Golan Heights. Two dozen others were injured.

The former CENTCOM commander didn’t comment on this specific incident or the possibility of Iraq getting dragged into the conflict, but said “It would not surprise me if Iran chose to ratchet up the intensity of this fight by calling on them to begin to attack US forces.”

“The Iranian-backed proxy militias in Iraq and in Syria are certainly a threat to US forces, Iraqi forces in that country,” he said.

These Iraqi militias have claimed dozens of rocket and drone attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria in the past. The US responded with airstrikes on militia positions in southern Iraq, sparking Baghdad to begin the process of winding down the anti-Islamic State (ISIS) mission of the US-led international coalition.

Washington and Baghdad recently announced that the mission will end in Iraq within a year and in Syria in two years.

“We're going to get smaller in Iraq. I don't think that's a bad thing. That's probably a good thing,” MacKenzie said, but added there is still work to be done in the war against ISIS.

“I still think we need to maintain capability in eastern Syria against ISIS and that will require working with our Kurdish and our Arab partners up and down… the Euphrates River in order to continue to achieve that. So that's a more longer-term thing, but I'm confident that we'll work closely with the Government of Iraq to find a good solution,” he said.