Although it was originally thought that Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen attacked a Saudi oil pipeline with a drone on May 14, the U.S. government recently confirmed that in fact it was Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia fully under Tehran’s control. Kataib Hezbollah is but one of several paramilitary groups the Islamic Republic funds and directs in Iraq, under the auspices of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Michael Pregent explains the implications:

[Iran’s] ability to carry out proxy attacks against a U.S. ally from Iraq, another supposed U.S. ally, highlights America’s failed strategy in Baghdad. As a result of American and Saudi pressure, Iraq’s Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi ordered the closure of IRGC militia offices across the country on July 1. However, militias have ignored similar calls before; the Iraqi government either cannot or will not remove the Iranian-backed militias from its territory, nor will it prevent them from targeting U.S. allies. Senior Iraqi politicians will not dare challenge the militia leaders. . . .

Instead, the Iraqi government has been compromised by Iranian influence and allows senior Iranian figures to freely operate in Iraqi territory. [For instance], Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, . . . holds an official Iraqi government position [and] is also the leader of Kataib Hezbollah. . . . As a member of government, Mohandes has access to U.S. intelligence, training, and equipment. . . . Kataib Hezbollah has [also] been trained by the IRGC and Lebanese Hizballah to fire advanced guided missiles from Southern Syria to Israel.

The Iraqi governments’ current strategy to counter Iranian influence involves integrating Kataib Hezbollah and other militias into its armed forces, a plan Pregent argues could make matters worse:

The result will be [Iran-backed] militias wearing Iraqi uniforms. . . . They will be the ones flying U.S. F-16s; they will be the ones driving U.S. M1A1 Abrams tanks, as well as the newly delivered Russian T-80 tanks. They will still answer to [the IRGC] directly.

The U.S. needs to change course in Iraq. The militias need to be opposed, and Mohandes needs to be removed, one way or another.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”