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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained, I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Noel King: And I'm Noel King. Today, we're talking about Iran, the United States, and Iraq. Let's start with the basics. Iran fired ballistic missiles at two U.S. air bases in Iraq last night.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As we come on the air tonight, we have breaking news. Iran's Revolutionary Guard says that it has launched ballistic missiles in the direction of American air bases in Iraq, where U.S. troops are stationed.
--:-- Noel King: Iranian state television says the attack was launched in revenge for the U.S. assassination of the Iranian general Ghassim Soleimani.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The missiles fired tonight, part of what Iran is now calling Operation Martyr Soleimani. Missiles launched from inside Iran, struck two air bases in Erbil and al-Assad, just west of Baghdad.
--:-- Noel King: We have learned one of the bases targeted, Assad Air Base in western Iraq and Anbar, President Trump and the first lady visited a little more than a year ago in December of 2018.
--:-- Jen Williams: So we don't yet know the damage to the facilities themselves. The U.S. military and the Iraqis are still kind of figuring that out, and they haven't really made anything clear on that.
--:-- Noel King: But we do know about casualties. And according to NATO forces who are part of the coalition that's involved there with the U.S., according to the U.S., and according to the Iraqi prime minister, there were no casualties among any of the U.S. troops, any of the Iraqi forces who were there, or any of the international forces.
--:-- Jen Williams: Is it still a big deal that Iran chose to launch these ballistic missiles?
--:-- Noel King: The fact that they decided to fire ballistic missiles from Iran is a very important point. As opposed to? As opposed to using their proxy groups, these like Shia militia groups that are backed by Iran inside Iraq.
--:-- Jen Williams: They typically do it that way. They will have these groups fire rockets toward U.S. facilities or Iraqi facilities. And that kind of creates a level of plausible deniability, right? We didn't do it. It was just these groups over there.
--:-- Noel King: But this was a very clear message. It was, we are sending these from Iran. They are directly targeting U.S. facilities. And we are very clear that we are very angry about the killing of Qasem Soleimani, and we're making no bones about it.
--:-- Jen Williams: And the Iranian government has issued statements about this attack. What are they explicitly saying?
--:-- Noel King: They are saying that this is a proportionate response for the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian senior military commander that the U.S. assassinated. They are saying that this is a concluded response.
--:-- Jen Williams: So Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said, you know, we executed this attack, but we have concluded it. So they're very strongly signaling that this was our response. We had to respond, and they did.
--:-- Noel King: The Iranians basically had no choice but to respond to the killing of such a high-level military commander. But they're also saying, look, we are doing this big show of force, but we are stopping at the line of actually killing any Americans or any Iraqis for that matter.
--:-- Jen Williams: The United States killed Iran's like foremost military leader and their revenge was peppering some bombs with mixed results that killed nobody. Not that this is like death toll for death toll, but was this sort of a more hesitant response from Iran?
--:-- Noel King: Aaron definitely could have done a lot more, and they chose not to. They have a lot of ways that they can strike against Americans and American allies in the region, including Israel. And they threatened to do so.
--:-- Jen Williams: Last night while we were watching this unfold, they were issuing all kinds of threats, saying if the U.S. responds again, then we could potentially launch a terrorist attack inside the United States, which they could theoretically do. They were saying we could attack targets in Israel. They specifically named the city of Haifa. They also said they could attack Dubai.
--:-- Noel King: But they chose not to. How did President Trump react?
--:-- Jen Williams: So somewhat surprisingly, last night he reacted fairly positively. Lots of exclamation points, right? Yeah. He tweeted, quote, all is well. Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq.
--:-- Noel King: And you wouldn't think those two statements would really go together. All is well. Iran just fired missiles at us. But he said later in the tweet, so far so good. And bragged about having the most powerful military.
--:-- Jen Williams: But in that tweet last night, he also said, I will be making a statement tomorrow morning. And he did today, a little bit after 11 o'clock, from the White House.
--:-- Noel King: So he walked out to the podium He flanked by all of his top generals military brass and Mike Pence looking very somber And he walked right out to the microphone and said As long as I president of the United States Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Good morning.
--:-- Jen Williams: He said that first. Quite a preface. It was very odd. It was kind of important to what he was going to get into later on.
--:-- Noel King: But there were three main points that really stood out to me from Trump's speech. The first is that he made it very clear that there's not going to be any big U.S. military response to Iran's attacks last night.
--:-- Jen Williams: Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.
--:-- Noel King: He was very clear in saying this ends here in terms of the big military fight. However, he did say some other things that could be taken as escalation at a little bit lower level.
--:-- Jen Williams: The United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes its behavior. That is not de-escalation. That is escalation.
--:-- Noel King: He is putting even more sanctions on Iran. And then he addressed the nuclear deal. It's called the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
--:-- Jen Williams: The U.S. withdrew from that deal already. but other countries still remain in it, including the UK, Germany, France, Russia, China. And they must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal or JCPOA.
--:-- Noel King: And that's really important because under that deal, those countries, plus the United States, when we were still in the deal, basically agreed to lift economic sanctions and give Iran economic benefits in exchange for them putting curbs on their nuclear program.
--:-- Jen Williams: So he's essentially calling on those countries to, like, reimpose sanctions, stop doing business, any business with Iran, and go back to much more hardcore, like, economic pressure against Iran.
--:-- Noel King: So, again, in that case, not de-escalatory. Quite the opposite. You've been waiting, you know, for 12 hours for the president's remarks here. What was your major takeaway from what he said?
--:-- Jen Williams: So the big takeaway is that everyone can breathe a sigh of relief for now. That the big, scary, bombing-each-other conflict between U.S. and Iran is probably dying down for now.
--:-- Noel King: However, one thing you need to understand about Iran is that when they do responses like this, they will tend to do a big response like we saw last night. Something showy. Right. But then they will do things that are a lot lower level kind of over the course of time.
--:-- Jen Williams: So we could see things like a cyber attack, other kind of lower level fighting or attacks from those proxies that we're used to seeing those kinds of things, rocket attacks from proxy groups in Iraq and other places, potentially targeting of U.S. troops or U.S. allies at other places like Syria, Yemen, and other places like that.
--:-- Noel King: So while I think there could be a second wave of attacks, they definitely threatened that. So far, they seem to be signaling very clearly that none of that will happen unless the U.S. escalates in return.
--:-- Jen Williams: But we could continue to see the kind of low-level, tit-for-tat kind of violence and kind of shadow war between the U.S. and Iran likely continue for a long time to come.
--:-- Noel King: So if Trump's strategy here was to take out a major opposition figure to the United States and face no real consequences, did he just win?
--:-- Jen Williams: I think it's too soon to tell, honestly. If this is where it ends, then you could probably say that, yeah, that, you know, we took out this very dangerous figure who is responsible for the deaths of a lot of Americans and Iraqis, by the way, with few consequences, with no American casualties, with no Iraqi casualties.
--:-- Noel King: But this isn't over yet. And at the bare minimum, this certainly escalated things to a very dangerous level.
--:-- Jen Williams: Not that this is like death toll for death toll, but was this sort of a more hesitant response from Iran?
--:-- Noel King: Aaron definitely could have done a lot more, and they chose not to. They have a lot of ways that they can strike against Americans and American allies in the region, including Israel. And they threatened to do so.
--:-- Jen Williams: Last night while we were watching this unfold, they were issuing all kinds of threats, saying if the U.S. responds again, then we could potentially launch a terrorist attack inside the United States, which they could theoretically do. They were saying we could attack targets in Israel. They specifically named the city of Haifa. They also said they could attack Dubai.
--:-- Noel King: But they chose not to.
--:-- Jen Williams: Overnight, something like 170 people did die in Iran in this plane crash in Tehran.
--:-- Noel King: Did that have anything to do with this?
--:-- Jen Williams: So this Boeing flight that was headed from Tehran to Kiev, Ukraine, crashed pretty shortly after takeoff inside Iran.
--:-- Noel King: And so far, it doesn't look like it had anything to do with the U.S.-Iran fight. It's still too early to tell.
--:-- Jen Williams: They're still investigating. The Ukrainian government initially came out and said there was, you know, no sign of terrorism or any other like missiles or anything like that.
--:-- Noel King: But they then took that statement down and are now saying, you know, it's under investigation.
--:-- Jen Williams: It looks like there was probably some kind of maybe a fire or engine failure that happened shortly after takeoff. So, in other words, like a mechanical failure.
--:-- Noel King: But it's too soon to tell. And obviously, just given the timing, there's a lot of speculation that this has something to do with it. It's certainly possible. But as of right now, it doesn't seem like that's probably the case.
--:-- Jen Williams: Apart from this plane crash, all of these incidents have taken place in Iraq. The killing of Soleimani, these missile attacks last night.
--:-- Noel King: How does Iraq feel about this beef between Iran and the United States playing out on its soil?
--:-- Jen Williams: Not great. Iraq is coming up on two decades of war being fought on its soil from the Iraq War to the fight against ISIS.
--:-- Noel King: And they're really caught in a tough place between two allies, the Americans and the Iranians.
--:-- Jen Williams: More in a minute.
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--:-- Jen Williams: Jen, a thing I've been wondering for the past week or so, did either country ask permission to carry out these attacks on Iraqi soil?
--:-- Noel King: It sure doesn't look like it. If you look at the Iraqi response to the U.S. killing of Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, their response was to basically ask U.S. troops to get out.
--:-- Jen Williams: Right. So that's not really a response you would expect if they knew that was going to happen and gave it the green light.
--:-- Noel King: And Iran? Same thing. The missiles that Iran fired hit an Iraqi airbase. It houses U.S. forces, but it is an Iraqi airbase where Iraqi forces were stationed at the time.
--:-- Jen Williams: You can't really ask permission to mess with someone's house. Do you mind if we fire missiles at your base and your soldiers? Yeah.
--:-- Noel King: What position is Iraq in right now? Two of its, I don't know, friends just came over, made a huge mess of their place and then kind of walked away?
--:-- Jen Williams: Yeah, they are definitely in a terrible position right now and they know it.
--:-- Noel King: This is a bit of an extension of what we saw during the Iraq War, when the U.S. and Iran were battling out for control of Iraq and who gets to be the big influence in the new Iraq they were building.
--:-- Jen Williams: This is a bit of an extension of that. But things are really different now. Iran has way more control and influence inside the Iraqi government than really ever before.
--:-- Noel King: And the U.S. has pretty much the least amount of control and influence in Iraq than it has for a very long time.
--:-- Jen Williams: So Iraq has to be careful because the government is very closely aligned with Iran in a lot of ways. But the people of Iraq, not so much.
--:-- Noel King: So you may remember that just recently there were these really big protests going on in Iraq. Totally.
--:-- Jen Williams: And those protests were about, in a large part, getting Iranian influence out of Iraq.
--:-- Noel King: And that's something that a lot of Iraqi people, Sunni, Shia, across the board, non-sectarian, are really tired of having foreign countries, Iran or the U.S., trying to run their country.
--:-- Jen Williams: They're like, look, can we just have our country back and can all of you get out and stop fighting on our soil?
--:-- Noel King: And so that was going on. And then we had these attacks. But this complicates that in some ways because, you know, now there's this bigger conflict going on.
--:-- Jen Williams: And it's like, do protesters still feel safe coming out and protesting against this? Does it change their calculation about, you know, which side they're on?
--:-- Noel King: Is it like, oh, we want the Americans back because we don't want Iran? You know is it more of like a patriotism thing where like, don't attack us We want everyone out or do they pick one side or the other?
--:-- Jen Williams: And there also the fact that just because of this violence going on there could very well be a move by the Iraqi government to kind of clamp down on everything and just keep everything under control domestically, which could make it harder for people to come out and protest.
--:-- Noel King: So that protest movement that was a very nationalistic Iraqi kind of protest, a lot of young people, but really across the spectrum, has essentially been co-opted by this broader conflict, which once again means the Iraqi people and their aspirations are being subsumed for this broader kind of regional conflict that's going on.
--:-- Jen Williams: Have there been any protests since the U.S. killed Soleimani on Iraqi soil?
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, there were protests in both Iraq and Iran against the killing of Qasem Soleimani. But there weren't the protests that we were usually seeing, right? This like anti-Iran, anti-U.S., anti-foreign intervention thing.
--:-- Jen Williams: This was very specific against the killing of Soleimani. But the Soleimani assassination and the Iranian retaliation didn't happen in Iran or in Idaho. It all happened in Iraq.
--:-- Noel King: What are Iraqis saying about that? I mean, a lot of people are talking on social media and saying, you know, once again, the Iraqi people are caught up in this conflict that has nothing to do with us, really.
--:-- Jen Williams: And this in particular doesn't really have anything to do with the Iraqi people themselves. And a lot of people are also just really angry that it doesn't seem like people really care what is happening to Iraqis or the fact that this is happening in Iraq.
--:-- Noel King: If you see a lot of the statements that came out from U.S. politicians, people were saying, you know, prayers go out to the U.S. troops and soldiers in Iraq who are under attack. But there was like nothing about the Iraqis who are also literally under attack.
--:-- Jen Williams: And yeah, they should say that they're American politicians. But like, there are Iraqis who are literally there next to Americans. It would be cool if people remembered that.
--:-- Noel King: What has the U.S. said about this non-binding resolution that Iraq passed over the weekend that says you got to get the troops out?
--:-- Jen Williams: Can I say clusterfuck? Yes.
--:-- Noel King: The word I would use is clusterfuck.
--:-- Jen Williams: What happened is there was this letter from basically the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq that was sent to the Iraqi government basically saying we recognize your sovereignty.
--:-- Noel King: And in response to your request that U.S. troops leave, we are going to start moving troops to get ready to move out and move on.
--:-- Jen Williams: Tonight, the Pentagon is scrambling to clarify U.S. troop deployments after what it says was a leaked draft of a memo sent to the Iraqis.
--:-- Noel King: And then the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, completely contradicted that just like a few minutes later when asked at the Pentagon by reporters.
--:-- Jen Williams: And he's like, no. But then Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters there's been no decision whatsoever to leave Iraq.
--:-- Noel King: There's no change to our force posture, which is just a wonky way of saying we're not moving our troops at all.
--:-- Jen Williams: And there was all this confusion. We're like, well, what about this letter? And then they were like, no, there's no letter. That's not happening.
--:-- Noel King: And then a few minutes later, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, comes walking back to the press room and says, oh, about that letter, that was a mistake.
--:-- Jen Williams: It was a draft. Well, I don't know anything about that letter. That letter was sent, and I understand it was an unsigned letter. So I could maybe let Mike speak to it. I don't know if that letter was a hoax or was it...
--:-- Noel King: But the Iraqis got the letter and they certainly think it's real. And according to them, they're like, you just told us you're leaving. So there's this huge mess.
--:-- Jen Williams: We still don't really know what's going on. The administration is still saying, no, we're not leaving. But they clearly drafted this letter that said we were leaving. So there's something in the works, obviously.
--:-- Noel King: So it's really confusing. But bottom line, as of right now, it seems like U.S. troops are not leaving. Yet.
--:-- Jen Williams: And it's just been a terrible week for Iraqi sovereignty. Absolutely.
--:-- Noel King: What's it going to take for Iraq's government or the country or the people to give these other countries an impression that Iraq isn't a country that you can just trample over?
--:-- Jen Williams: It's a really good question. There has been a very serious upswell in protests, but it's going to take something on a much broader scale than what we've seen so far, even though we've seen massive protests.
--:-- Noel King: We're talking revolution style to kick out these people. And Iran has a lot of power and it has years of influence inside Iraq and not just in the government, but in religious institutions and in these militia groups.
--:-- Jen Williams: Their fingers are all over Iraq and it's really hard to disentangle that just overnight.
--:-- Noel King: Jen Williams is one of the hosts of Worldly. That's a podcast from Vox.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained from Vox.
--:-- Noel King: And you've heard Reset from Vox, right? On today's show, they're talking about Iran as a cyber security threat to the United States going forward and how the United States sort of inspired Iran to invest in cyber warfare capabilities in the first place.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's on Reset from Vox. Check it out, Vox. We make podcasts, OK?
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