Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Iraq

Israeli general sees possible threat from Iraq as Iran’s clout grows

Middle East Monitor 01/01/2019

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

Iran could use its growing clout in Iraq to turn it into a springboard for attacks against Israel, the chief of Israeli military intelligence said on Monday, reports Reuters.

Israel sees the spread of Tehran’s influence in the region as a growing threat and has carried out scores of air strikes in civil war-torn Syria against suspected military deployments and arms deliveries by Iranian forces supporting Damascus.

Iraq, which does not share a border with Israel, is technically its enemy but was last an open threat in the 1991 Gulf War. Since a US-led invasion in 2003 toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, Israel has worried that Iraq’s Shi’ite majority could tilt towards Iran.

“Iraq is under the growing influence of the Qods Force (covert Iranian foreign operations unit) and Iran,” military intelligence chief Major-General Tamir Hayman told a conference in Tel Aviv.

With US President Donald Trump disengaging from the region, Hayman said, the Iranians may “see Iraq as a convenient theatre for entrenchment, similar to what they did in Syria, and to use it as a platform for a force build-up that could also threaten the State of Israel”.

Iraq’s prime minister said on Sunday that security officials from Baghdad had met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, and hinted at a bigger Iraqi role fighting Islamic State militants as US troops withdraw.

Embed from Getty Images

Citing Iranian, Iraqi and Western sources, Reuters reported in August that Iran had transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Shi’ite allies in Iraq. Baghdad denied the findings.

The following week, Israel said it might attack such sites in Iraq, effectively expanding a campaign now focused on Syria.

Hayman predicted 2019 would bring “significant change” to Syria, where Assad has beaten back rebels with the help of Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah reinforcements, and where Trump this month ordered a pullout of US troops.

“This presence of Iran, with Syria’s return to stabilisation under a Russian umbrella, is something we are watching closely,” he said.

Israel has also been monitoring Iranian conduct since Trump quit the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran in May and reimposed US sanctions. The deal placed caps on nuclear projects with bomb-making potential, though Iran denied having such designs. Trump, with Israeli support, deemed the caps insufficient.

“We assess that Iran will strive to stay within the deal but will do everything in order to find ways of circumventing the American sanctions,” Hayman said.

Creative Commons License This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Via Middle East Monitor

Filed Under: Iraq, Israel

About the Author

Middle East Monitor is a not-for-profit press monitoring organization, founded on 1 July 2009, and based in London. Journalists who have written for it include Amelia Smith, Diana Alghoul, Ben White, Jehan Alfarra and Jessica Purkiss. The editorial line straddles the British left and the British Muslim religious Right.

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Are Cyberattacks and Iran's Port Explosion the First Salvo in Disrupting U.S.-Iran Nuclear Talks?
  • Trump, the Suez Canal, and the end of Eisenhower's World Order
  • My Palestine: An Impossible Exile
  • Rümeysa Öztürk freed, as Judge Warns of Grave Threat to Free Speech
  • When Politics Leaves Reality Behind

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved