Our Insane Foreign Policy

On Sunday, The Washington Free Beacon reported that Iran has claimed responsibility for the ballistic missiles that struck the U.S. consulate and other targets in Erbil, Iraq’s northern Kurdish regional capital, early Sunday morning. We are currently negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. Obviously they have very little respect for us or our foreign interests.

The article reports:

The missile attack comes as talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal face the prospect of collapse after a last-minute Russian demand forced world powers to pause negotiations for an undetermined time despite having a largely completed text.

The missiles, which targeted the U.S. consulate‘s new building and a neighbouring residential area, caused only material damage and one civilian was injured, the Kurdish interior ministry said. An Iraqi security official told Reuters that the missiles were manufactured in Iran.

Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards released a statement taking responsibility for the missile attack against Israeli “strategic centres” in Erbil, Iran‘s state media reported.

“Any repetition of attacks by Israel will be met with a harsh, decisive and destructive response,” the Revolutionary Guard said in the statement.

There are a lot of things going on here. First of all, Iran would like to be in control of Iraq. Kurdistan is an impediment to that control. Secondly, Iran needs to drag out the nuclear talks long enough to get an atomic bomb. They are almost there, and they probably have some sort of acceptable delivery system. When they have both, their bullying tactics may turn into action–not a good thing for anyone in the world.

The article concludes:

Iran had carried out attacks against American targets and did not shy away from publicizing this,” said Hamidreza Azizi, Visiting Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

“I see this more as a warning sign to Israel and a show of force in the negotiations.”

A Kurdish spokesperson for the regional authorities said there were no flight interruptions at Erbil airport.

Residents of Erbil posted videos online showing several large explosions, and some said the blasts shook their homes. Reuters could not independently verify those videos.

Iraq has been rocked by chronic instability since the defeat of the Sunni Islamist group Islamic State in 2017 by a loose coalition of Iraqi, U.S.-led and Iran-backed forces.

Since then, Iran-aligned militias have regularly attacked U.S. military and diplomatic sites in Iraq, U.S. and many Iraqi officials say. Iran denies involvement in those attacks.

When America has a weak President, the world is less safe.