May 14, 2021
The commander of US CENTCOM says the assassination last year of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleymani has frightened the Islamic Republic because it was a far stronger retaliation than the regime had been anticipating. As a result, he said, Iran is now deterred from taking stronger military action against the US.
Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the CENTCOM commander, spoke at length about Iran April 22 both in testimony before congressional committees and in a press conference at the Pentagon.
He said he was “most concerned” about Iran’s increasing ballistic missile threat, especially the improved accuracy of those missiles. But later he said he was “most concerned” about Iran’s increasing recourse to small drones, because US radars cannot track small drones, though they can follow large ones.
In his news conference, McKenzie said, “Let me start with the ballistic missile question, because that’s actually as I look at the theater and I look at the Iranian threat—that is the most concerning threat to me. Over the last five to seven years the Iranians have made remarkable qualitative improvements in their ballistic missile force while it has grown quantitatively as well, and now numbers, depending on how you choose to count the weapons, something a little less than 3,000 of various ranges.”
In addition, he said, “Their accuracy has become much better than it used to be, that is very concerning to me. We saw that demonstrated in the attack on Al Asad Airbase [in Iraq] in January of 2020, where I would argue that the Iranian missiles generally hit within tens of meters of the targets that they chose for them—so, that is very concerning to me….
“At the same time, they have begun to invest heavily in land attack cruise missiles and in their unmanned aerial program—their drone program—has also made significant achievements.”
Turning to Iran’s nuclear program, McKenzie said, “I would simply note they’ve done nothing that’s irreversible up to this point, and I think that’s just an important thing to remember.” However, State Department officials say the opposite, noting that Iran has resumed research and development work in areas that were banned by the JCPOA. Developments in R&D cannot be reversed.
McKenzie was then asked if the United States was capable of deterring Iran. He said, “We gained deterring effect against Iran by having a capable force that they know we’re ready to use. And I would argue since January 2020 [when the US assassinated Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleymani] the Iranians have had to recalculate our willingness to use force against them. That has had an effect on them.”
But, he added, “I think Iran still pursues a policy of attempting to eject the United States—and indeed our partners and allies—from the region as well, and that’s principally fought out in the battleground that is Iraq,” referring to the frequent attacks on American interests by Iran’s militia allies in Iraq.
McKenzie said, “Over most of 2020, I believe they thought they had a political solution to force the United States out of Iraq. That is no longer the case. It’s evident from the recent Strategic Dialogue [between the US and Iraqi governments] and from other signals we receive from the Government of Iraq. We’re going to be there, our NATO partners are going to be there to finish the ISIS fight, and we’re going to stay in Iraq…. The government of Iraq wants us to stay. They had opportunities over 2020 to ask us to leave, and they did not do that. They want us to stay.”
A year ago, shortly after the killing of Soleymani and an Iraqi militia leader by a US drone, the Iraqi Parliament approved a non-binding resolution urging the Iraqi government to tell the American military to leave. The Baghdad government refused to do that and the Parliament has not approved a similar or stronger resolution. It has just dropped the issue.
McKenzie added that it is not just US military forces in Iraq; NATO has sent troops to operate there. “The NATO Mission Iraq, is actually going to expand. And at some point, there’ll probably be more NATO forces there than there are US forces, which will be a good thing.”
McKenzie said, “I think you might see kinetic events [military attacks] spring up … in Iraq. But that is different from the larger Iranian desire to avoid a state-on-state conflict with the United States. They may be mistaken in that approach, but I can’t defend their logic, I’m just trying to describe it to you.”
He said that since the start of 2021, Iraqi militias backed by Iran have fired nine times at the US embassy or at bases hosting US or European forces. In the same period, the Iraqi militias have used more than 50 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to attack convoys carrying US supplies. Those convoys, however, are staffed exclusively by Iraqis, so the attackers know they risk little threat of retaliation since they are not endangering American citizens.
McKenzie then turned to Iran’s great emphasis on drones or unmanned aerial systems (UAS). “The UAS threat, the small drone threat, the quad-copter less than the arms-length of a human being, is what really probably concerns me the most in the theater…. Our air defense system and our Patriots [missile radars] and our other radars, they’re very good at seeing the larger objects, be it ballistic missiles or be it larger land-attack cruise missiles or larger drones. The smaller drone is a problem, and the smaller drone is the future of warfare, and we need to get ahead of that right now.”
Perhaps the most-quoted comment he made was that Iran’s use of small drones means that, “For the first time since the Korean War, we are operating without complete air superiority…. Until we are able to develop and field a networked capability to detect and defeat UASes, the advantage will remain with the attacker.”
He did not say or suggest that the drones could defeat the US military, but that they could elude the US air defenses to strike Arab oil installations.
McKenzie displayed little concern about a threat from the remnants of the Islamic State inside Syria, though he acknowledged that it still exists and can carry out local attacks. He was clearly more concerned about what to do with all the IS fighters and supporters taken prisoner in Syria. Those people are kept prisoner by America’s Kurdish allies at camps the Kurds run. McKenzie said the camps hold nearly 10,000 IS fighters, including nearly 2,000 foreign fighters that their governments refuse to take back. He said the largest camp for displaced people, including the families of IS fighters, is at Al-Hol and holds nearly 61,000 people, 94 percent of them women and children
As for Russian and Chinese activities in the region, he said they operate entirely differently with different goals and policies. “Russia plays the part of spoiler to the US, using military means, influence operations and grey-zone activities to undermine and disrupt US influence and reassert its own global influence. China uses predominantly economic means to establish regional in-roads, with a long-time goal of expanding its military presence to secure vital routes of energy and trade.”