By John Haltiwanger and Rishi Iyengar
Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report.
Here’s what’s on tap for the day: The U.S.-Iran war goes (even more) regional, Trump gets his new director of national intelligence, and the AI industry asks to be reined in.
Have feedback? Hit reply to let us know your thoughts.
Security forces and emergency personnel work at the site of U.S.-Saudi strikes that targeted a base belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq’s Diyala province on July 29.Younis Al-Bayati/AFP via Getty Images
After a brief lull in fighting, the U.S.-Iran war is heating up again this week—and it appears to be pulling in more countries.
Iran launched a surprise missile attack on U.S. forces in Jordan on Tuesday. Egypt was hit by a drone attack on Wednesday, seemingly drawing the country into the Iran war for the first time. No country or group has claimed responsibility, but the attack at Egypt’s Damietta port caused a fire on two vessels—including a U.S. tanker. And Kuwait, which has faced repeated attacks during the war as Iran strikes countries that host U.S. troops, was once again targeted on Thursday. That same day, Jordan said it intercepted missiles fired by Iran.
But perhaps the biggest development came in Iraq.
A new phase in the war? The United States and Saudi Arabia conducted joint strikes on Iran-backed militias in Iraq on Wednesday. At least 20 fighters with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of militias, were reportedly killed.
U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said the joint strikes targeted “Iran-aligned terrorists” who’ve been directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to attack U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure. Centcom said there had been over 30 “IRGC-directed” drone attacks over the previous 72 hours, and that between February and April there were more than 600 attempted attacks on U.S. citizens and facilities by Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
The strikes marked the first time that Saudi Arabia publicly acknowledged involvement in the war. Though the kingdom reportedly carried out covert strikes against Iran in previous months and has been accused by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen of bombing the country’s international airport in Sanaa, Saudi Arabia has largely sought to avoid becoming too entangled in the fight and has signaled it does not seek further escalation. But with the Houthis now imposing a blockade on Saudi shipping and Iran-backed militias targeting Saudi energy, Riyadh may struggle to distance itself from the conflict.
Some experts say it shouldn’t come as a shock that Iran is leveraging its influence with militias in Iraq to cause problems for the United States and its allies. Though Iraq has not been a focal point in the U.S.-Iran war so far, it’s debatable whether this week’s strikes represent the opening of a new front.
“We shouldn’t be surprised,” Victoria J. Taylor, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran who is now at the Atlantic Council, told SitRep. Iraq has been “frequently pulled into regional conflict” over the years, “particularly when Iran feels it’s useful to do so.”
The United States in recent years has repeatedly targeted groups such as Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful militia in the PMF, in response to attacks on U.S. forces and facilities in the region. But the recent uptick in attacks by Iran-backed militias in Iraq, including on Saudi oil facilities, is part of a “broader Iranian effort to increase pressure on the United States and the region,” Taylor said.
The United States has warned Iran-backed militias in Iraq to cease attacks if they hope to avoid “further U.S. military response.” But much like the U.S. air campaign against Iran has failed to break Tehran’s resolve, it’s also an open question whether strikes will lead to a shift in behavior from militias in Iraq linked to Tehran.
“The real challenge in confronting the militia activity is that the most hard-line militias within Iraq are the most responsive to the Iranian regime,” Taylor said. “You can try to strike some of these bases, but it’s not likely to significantly degrade the capabilities of these militias, which are very strong. They’re dispersed throughout Iraq—very deep networks. And it’s also very unlikely to impact the decision-making. I see no evidence that Iran will think twice about directing further militia attacks if the U.S. manages to take out a small number of militia fighters.”
The Senate confirmed Jay Clayton as the U.S. director of national intelligence on Tuesday in a 51-47 vote. Clayton will replace acting director Bill Pulte, the controversial housing official who has overseen (and boasted about) dramatic cuts to U.S. intelligence agencies in his short tenure. Pulte is reportedly urging U.S. President Donald Trump to delay Clayton’s swearing in so that Pulte can spend a little more time in the job.
The Pentagon has removed four U.S. soldiers killed in Iranian strikes earlier this month from its official Iran war casualty tally, saying it created a new category titled “Overseas Operations” because the U.S. military’s official campaign against Iran, which it refers to as “Operation Epic Fury,” has ended.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military may require some service members stationed in the Middle East to surrender their cellphones over concerns that posting videos of Iranian strikes on U.S. bases could give away details of those bases.
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Russia escalates. A Russian missile landed in Poland during Russia’s latest barrage of strikes against Ukraine, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Thursday, escalating and potentially widening the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Washington this week to attend the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral and to meet with Trump. During their meeting, Zelensky reiterated Ukraine’s need for an expedited license to manufacture U.S. Patriot missile interceptors. His request comes amid reports that U.S. stockpiles of the interceptors are severely depleted (more on that below).
And speaking of Graham, the bill he championed for years that would place stricter sanctions on Russia cleared a key legislative hurdle on Thursday and has a smoother path to passage than it’s possibly ever had, as our colleague Keith Johnson laid out in his latest piece.
AI action. More than 1,000 employees of the leading artificial intelligence companies including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have co-signed a statement calling for global governments to rein their technology in. “The world’s leading AI companies believe they could be close to automating AI research,” read the statement, which was also signed by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. “It is hard to predict exactly how much this will accelerate AI progress, but there is a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems.”
Because of those risks, the statement requested that “the U.S. government support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.”
This is not the first time that the AI industry has warned about the dangers of its own technology. In 2023, a proposal to pause major AI experiments for six months gathered more than 30,000 signatures. But the latest push could be driven by China’s recent advances in AI, which Rishi outlined last week.
The dangers of AI have been in stark relief of late, with OpenAI revealing that an autonomous hack earlier this month by one of its models went further than previously disclosed.
Such risks haven’t deterred Centcom, however, which announced a joint AI task force with the United Arab Emirates this week. The task force will consist of around 20 personnel from both countries who will “focus on integrating AI applications for intelligence support, protecting critical infrastructure, and monitoring the regional security environment.”
Palestinians inspect damaged and destroyed buildings that were targeted by Israeli strikes the previous night in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on July 29. Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth introduced a new bill this week that aims to counter China’s gray-zone tactics—aggressive activities designed to expand influence while stopping short of armed conflict, such as incursions by warships or fighter jets, economic coercion, cyberattacks, and disinformation campaigns.
Duckworth told SitRep that the bill, which is co-sponsored by GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn, was inspired by conversations with allies in the Indo-Pacific, including on a recent trip to Taiwan and Japan, about “a lack of coordination among the nations and the U.S. when it comes to China’s gray-zone activities.” The legislation would direct the State Department to come up with a strategy for monitoring gray-zone activities; calls for an interagency task force to track, develop, and strengthen the tools for countering such operations; and aims to boost cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners.
When asked whether there’s appetite for this bill in the White House at a time when critics accuse Trump of being soft on China, Duckworth said “there’s a split between the Trump administration and Congress”—and particularly “our bipartisan group who are opposed to what he’s doing in terms of cozying up to [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping].” Duckworth said that there’s “a lot of angst” among Indo-Pacific leaders about the U.S. government’s posture toward the region. “So, it’s really good that we are introducing a bipartisan piece of legislation that basically says: America is going to remain a Pacific nation, we’re going to remain a leader in the region,” she said.
Sunday, Aug. 2: Deadline for companies to comply with the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act.
Tuesday, Aug. 4: Israeli and Lebanese officials are set to conduct a new round of peace negotiations in Rome.
Wednesday, Aug. 5: Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang military exercise, meant to prepare for a potential Chinese attack, is expected to begin.
Friday, Aug. 7: New Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella begins his term in office.
827—the maximum number of Patriot missile interceptors remaining in U.S. stockpiles as of Monday, according to a new estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies that was corroborated to CNN by Pentagon sources. That’s a more than 60 percent drop from the 2,330 the U.S. military had before the Iran war.
“I told him, ‘I want to end the war. Get the war ended.’”
—Trump on his meeting this week with Zelensky, referring to the Russia-Ukraine war that Trump had pledged to end within 24 hours of resuming office last year.
A Nevada judge this week dismissed FBI Director Kash Patel’s defamation lawsuit against online commentator Jim Stewartson for online posts in which Stewartson called Patel a “Kremlin asset” who “attempted to overthrow the government.” Patel filed the lawsuit in 2023, long before he became FBI director. The judge ruled that the court did not have “personal jurisdiction” over Stewartson, deeming that he did not have sufficient ties to Nevada, where the lawsuit was filed. Stewartson has continued his war of words throughout the case, celebrating the dismissal on Tuesday by calling Patel (not for the first time) a “chud” and a “googly-eyed Kremlin bitch” in a post on X.
No comments:
Post a Comment