1. Qassem in the middle: Israel is warily eyeing Iranian-backed attacks on US assets in Iraq in which rioters backed by Tehran have stormed the US embassy for two days running, in response to an attack on an Iran-backed militia, after an American was killed in a rocket attack.
- A number of Israeli analysts tie the attacks to a coordinated Iranian attempt to reverse anti-Tehran sentiment in Iraq and the region.
- Yedioth Ahronoth intimates that the rioting is directly tied to a visit by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qassem Soleimani, claiming, with no sourcing, that he told his underlings while there “to look for opportunities to confront American embassy staff and try to remove them from Iraq.”
- Israel Hayom’s Oded Granot says Iraq is Soleimani’s “preferred” theater against the Americans: “A confrontation on Iraqi soil via militias tied to Tehran will help the Iranians drive a wedge between Washington and Baghdad. … Yesterday it became clear that Iran intends to take advantage of the embassy incident in order to rally public sentiment in Iraq in favor of ousting the embassy and American forces from Iraq.”
- Kan’s Roi Kas retweets a video of pro-Iran militiamen essentially being let into the Green Zone with the help of Iraqi soldiers, and writes that “Trump should know: if the Iraqi forces were working well, the angry masses wouldn’t have gotten near the embassy in the first place.” He predicts the situation will not calm anytime soon, as the militias “try to take advantage of the situation and give a picture that a few thousand angry rioters represent the whole country.”
- He also tweets a picture of militias setting up food for the rioters, calling it “MasterChef: Pro-Iran militias.” READ MORE
