The Iranian-backed terrorist group Kataib Hezbollah is alleged to have been behind the drone attack that killed three US service members in Jordan on January 27. The US is expected to respond. On January 30, Kataib Hezbollah claimed it would pause attacks on US forces. The Pentagon has said “actions speak louder than words.”
The Iranian policy with Kataib Hezbollah is similar to its policy with Hamas after the massive unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7. Iran carries out attacks, either directly or via proxies, and then immediately wants a ceasefire. This has also been the Hamas doctrine for decades.
Hamas attacks whenever it chooses, and then it demands a pause in fighting or a ceasefire. In the past, this was characterized as a hudna or long-term ceasefire. The concept here is kind of obvious when one thinks about it. A group’s goal is to defeat an adversary or massacre all of the members of the adversary. However, the group isn’t strong enough to achieve this in one large conventional battle.
So the group thrives off killing a few people, kidnapping a few, and then demanding a hudna, and regrouping and then killing more and getting a new hudna. Rather than hudna, it could be described as a “death by a thousand paper cuts” strategy.
Long term goals
In essence, Kataib Hezbollah has been doing this for more than a decade. Its previous leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was a long-time Iranian proxy and terrorist in the region. However, like all Iranian-backed groups, his goals were long-term. The goal is to remove the US from Iraq and from other places in the Middle East, just as the Hamas goal is to destroy Israel.
However, Kataib Hezbollah is no match for the US military if the US military actually wants to fight it. Therefore the group carries out a series of small attacks, driving up the “price” for the US remaining in the region. Whenever the group senses the US will retaliate, it will then pause operations and demand a ceasefire.
Iran is very good at spreading its narrative in this regard. It will encourage a group like Kataib Hezbollah to escalate and kill Americans in a place like Jordan. Then it depicts any US response as “widening the war.”
Similarly, Hamas carried out a huge massacre on October 7 but then depicts Israel’s actions in Gaza as somehow disproportionate or escalating the war. At each juncture, Iran is the one escalating. It encouraged Hezbollah to fire 2,000 rockets at Israel since October 7, but any Israeli response “risks” a “wider war.”
Iran even appears to have spread this talking point in the wake of the January 27 attack on US forces in Jordan. Any US response is a “risk” and could mean “wider war.” Now Kataib Hezbollah has “paused” attacks, so it will portray itself as the victim if its members are targeted. The US will be portrayed as violating the “ceasefire” that Kataib Hezbollah invented.
The process of how Iran and its proxies conduct themselves is entirely transparent. However, they often create layers of feigned complexity for these actions. For instance, pro-Iran politicians in Iraq are now trying to get US forces to leave Iraq. Therefore the Iranian lobby asserts that any US retaliation to Iranian proxies’ unprovoked attack on US soldiers in Jordan could cause Iraq to demand US troops leave Iraq.
Think this through carefully: The US sent troops to Iraq after 2014 to help Iraq defeat ISIS. Pro-Iran groups began attacking US forces in Iraq in 2019. The US responded to those attacks in January 2020. Iran then attacked US forces in Iraq in response to the response.
Beginning in January 2021, the Iranian proxies in Iraq escalated attacks in Iraq to also target US forces in Erbil in the Kurdistan autonomous region. Around 90 attacks were carried out between January 2021 and October 6, 2023. After October 7, Iran had its proxies carry out more than 160 attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria. This culminated in the January 27 attack in Jordan, expanding the war on the US. Now, after hundreds of attacks, one Iranian proxy claims it will stop the attacks. Clearly, Iran has dictated every step of this process. The question is whether the US will call the Iranian bluff this time and get beyond the cycle of “Iran attacks and demands ceasefire immediately,” which is the guiding doctrine of Iran in the Middle East.
