The storming of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad has launched one of the biggest foreign policy crises of the Trump presidency.
Driving the news: Trump tweeted on Tuesday afternoon, "Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!"
Catch up quick: Outside the embassy, "thousands of protesters and militia fighters [were] chanting 'Death to America,' throwing rocks, covering the walls with graffiti and demanding that the United States withdraw" from Iraq, the N.Y. Times reports. "[M]any were members of Kataib Hezbollah," which is backed by Iran.
- 120 Marines were rushed to Baghdad today, the most since ISIS was at its peak.
- Trump tweeted: "To those many millions of people in Iraq who want freedom and who don’t want to be dominated and controlled by Iran, this is your time!"
Why it matters: President Trump may feel compelled to do something because the world’s cameras are trained on scenes of American weakness.
- Trump has privately talked about the weakness that he believes President Carter showed in response to the Iranian hostage crisis.
- On the other hand, Trump has, until his recent retaliatory air strikes, been reluctant to fight a proxy war against Iran inside Iraq.
- When Iran shot down a U.S. drone earlier this year, Trump was prepared to strike several Iranian targets, but at the last minute his more dovish instincts kicked in. It was only when Iranian proxies killed a U.S. contractor recently that Trump felt he had no choice but to strike back.
Between the lines: Unlike most of his national security team, Trump sees very little value in an American presence in Iraq — full stop.
- Some of his more dovish outside advisers have warned him that an escalating conflict with Iranian proxies could quickly blow out into a dangerous new war.
- The first theater could be Iraq, over which Iran wields extraordinary power. Iranian militias are well positioned to attack the roughly 5,000 U.S. military personnel still inside Iraq.
- The Iraqi security forces have shown themselves to be incompetent and cannot be relied upon to protect American troops in Iraq.
The big picture: If Trump strikes back hard against Iran, he may get a new Middle East war he never wanted. If he does nothing, he may show the Carter-esque weakness he has long derided. ...
- But there's another possibility that cannot be entirely dismissed. In an "Axios on HBO" interview two months ago