On 27 December, the Iran-backed Kata’ib Hezbollah group fired rockets at a military base in Kirkuk, killing a US contractor and wounding several US and Iraqi troops. Trump constantly mentions his supposed desire to end US involvement in foreign wars – in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But since May 2019 the Pentagon has deployed more than 14,000 troops to the Middle East. At the time, the Trump administration inflated the threat posed by Iran to US troops and allies in the Middle East. “I, as a soldier, respond to you.”• Mohamad Bazzi, a journalism professor at New York University, is a former Middle East bureau chief at Newsday

Source: The Guardian January 03, 2020 14:18 UTC