Intel: How Trump laid legal groundwork to strike Iran after Iraqi militia attacks
Mounting tensions between US forces and Tehran-backed proxies in Iraq could lead to broader American military action against Iran. If that happens, President Donald Trump already has at his disposal a legal opinion the State Department submitted to Congress last June.
“We do not make a distinction between the Iranian regime and any of its proxies that they organize, train and equip,” a senior State Department official told reporters today. “We are not giving Iran the fiction of deniability any longer.”
The United States blamed the Iran-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah for deadly attacks on American forces in Iraq and struck the militia in Iraq and Syria Dec. 29. Abdul Mahdi al-Muhandis, a former Kataib Hezbollah commander and current head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units, has vowed “a very tough response” on US forces in Iraq.
Why it matters: Democrats in Congress are worried the Trump administration could use two prior military authorizations — one from 2001 and the other from 2002 — to use military force against Iran as tensions mount in Iraq.
