In the wake of the most recent tensions between the US and Iran, signs of a new warfare in the Middle East have appeared: important and new events are no longer going to happen on the ground, but in the air.
Turkey and Iran have well understood this fact, but it turned out that Iran is not ready for this brand new conflict. Thus, in the course of the past few days, they did not just lose Qasem Soleimani, but also took failed revenge against the US, rather than the "harsh revenge" they had threatened.
After Soleimani was killed, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Soleimani had become a heavenly person. With such description, he meant the religious and spiritual side of his death. But, his comment was also correct in a military sense; Soleimani became one of the victims of the regional “air war”.
Before his death and in his latest interview with Iranian media, Soleimani recalled how he, along with a prominent leader of Hezbollah miraculously survived a drone they had spotted overhead of them in Beirut.
It has now become clear that if someone wants to target you from the air, there is no chance of survival.
Al-Qaeda did not just suffer a major blow with the death of their leader Osama Bin Laden, but also with the killing of many other leaders of the group by unmanned drones in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq. The US applying the Israeli experience of targeting Palestinian Islamic leaders to exterminate American foes in the region was successful.
Washington promoted Michael D'Andrea, an officer who was in charge of the counter-terror and American drone strike campaigns to the head of the Iran Mission Center in the CIA.
To prepare this column, I conducted abundant research on the drone capabilities of countries, the types of drones and their level of sophistication. While searching, I often came across Andrea, who has been nicknamed “Ayatollah Mike”.
There is very little information on his identity. A convert to Islam, all that is known about him is that he is a hardworking, chain-smoker who works overtime, sleeping in the CIA office.
He has presided over a campaign that has killed al-Qaeda leaders unmercifully. Since 2017 when he was tasked with dealing with Iran, Tehran has been afraid of him and has accused him of orchestrating protests in the country, especially those staged in 2018.
As it appears, Ayatollah Mike, 61, is changing the definition and course of conflicts in our region given the fact that the US warfare technology has overcome Russian, Chinese and others' technological advancements in this regard.
Therefore, for example, if Hadi Amiri and Qais Khazali or any other Iraqi leader wants to stage an attack on the US under Iran's command, they must know that Ayatollah Mike is watching them from the sky ,gathering information on them on the ground and could, at any moment, put an end to their lives. This may be was a reason that Shiite leaders said they had no plan to attack the US Embassy in Baghdad after Soleimani was killed.
When Trump is saying "I am embracing peace", he has well understood that traditional warfare does no longer work. Last week, Iran showed to Trump their air force capabilities after some of their missiles failed to explode when they were fired at bases housing American troops in Iraq, followed by their inability to distinguish between civil aircraft and an enemy missile, downing a Ukrainian Airlines flight.
It is clear now that the USA and Israel do not need to resort to ground operations to fight Iran, being able to win over any military battle against the latter from the air with less financial costs, imposing crippling economic sanctions and by inciting the public to protest against the government.
Here is now the big picture; if you heard in the future days and weeks that a PMU leader or Iranian proxies in the region were killed by America, and the US took responsibility because the target was planning to harm the US interests in the region, you should realize that the CIA’s “Ayatollah Mike “has received dangerous intelligence information and has received approval to target them.
In such warfare, how will Iran be able to take "harsh revenge", especially against someone like Ayatollah Mike in which very little is known about his identity?
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
