The long American battle with Iran ... when will it end?

Writer Ryan Crocker asks whether the killing of the Quds Force commander, Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, was an act of war? He says in an article published by the New York Times that if it is, this incident is related to a war to which the United States and Iran are parties.

Crocker adds that the roots of this war go back to Lebanon in the early eighties of the last century, when the predecessors of General Suleimani established what is known today as the Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iran helped with planning from Syria to bomb the American embassy and maritime barracks in Beirut in 1983, which killed 241 military personnel. An American was participating in a peacekeeping mission.

As a young State Department official who survived the bombings, the writer saw how Iran succeeded in forcing the United States to withdraw its forces from Lebanon through terrorism.

He adds that he helped transport the remains of two Americans who were killed by Hezbollah in his capacity as ambassador to his country in Lebanon, and that was a CIA agent William Buckley and Rear Admiral William Higgins, on a helicopter before Christmas in 1991.

Intimate hug
In Syria, the author saw coordination between Syria and Iran to support Hezbollah, and the intimate embrace between Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and attended a ceremony honoring members of his service who were killed by the Shiite militias supported by Soleimani, when he was an ambassador. To his country in Iraq after years.

The writer explains that when the news of Soleimani's death was confirmed, he felt an internal relief, as a large enemy had left the United States, which could not be easily replaced, and that was a consolation to the hundreds of American souls he had killed over the years. But what will happen next?

Here, the writer points out that the United States is involved in what has been termed "escalation hegemony", which means that the United States needs to calculate how the opponent responds to a specific act emanating from it, and he asked: What are the weaknesses of both the United States and Iran? Depending on the opponent's reactions, what survey steps will the United States take? And how does the United States increase the pain of the Iranians while denying them the opportunity to confront the escalation?

The writer goes on to say that in light of the complicated context of Iran, the situation becomes a multi-dimensional chess game. The United States has forces in Iraq and Syria, and it has a military presence throughout the Gulf, i.e. in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman, where they are considered potential targets, The United States will also have to consult closely with Israel.

Escalation dominance
The writer explains that "the escalation hegemony" is not a simple measure of brute force, and that it relates to knowing the party most vulnerable to hegemony, based on a review of capabilities, design, priority setting and patience.

He says he understood this in Beirut in the 1980s, when young Iran was able to force the United States out of Lebanon, even as it fought a brutal attrition war against Iraq under the rule of late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

He says that the attempt to dominate the Iranian escalation may include threats and actions against US regional allies, continued attacks on the movement of oil tankers in the Gulf, and direct attacks on US installations in the region.

But the options available to Iran and its supporters are not only dynamic, according to the author, and even before targeting Soleimani in Baghdad, political parties close to Iran proposed the possibility of enacting legislation in the Iraqi parliament to demand the departure of all US forces from the country. On Sunday, Iraqi lawmakers agreed, and the Prime Minister has indicated that he will sign it.

The author adds that although the United States is in a hypothetical war with Iran, confrontations take place in Iraq, and in the event that the United States embassy in Baghdad is evacuated and lost the ability to monitor events and influence them, this will be a victory for Iran, and the United States will also have options Military not practiced in 1983, including large-scale direct attacks on Iran.

The administration of US President Donald Trump will also have to understand the full complexity of the recent conflict that has aggravated it, assemble and use senior officials from the region, work closely with allies and end the protracted war, and until now the Trump presidency has not had these features.

The writer expresses his satisfaction with what happened on Friday near Baghdad airport, adding that it seems that Soleimani has allowed his arrogance to overcome wisdom over the past few years, and that the disguised leader has emerged from the shadows, held press conferences and made media tours.

He concluded by saying: It was a brilliantly planned and executed attack that killed five people, including General Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of an Iranian-backed militia, who was involved in the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Kuwait.