A Long War With Iran

By David L. Phillips

It is widely believed that George W. Bush launched the Iraq War in 2003 without a plan for stabilizing Iraq in the postwar period. That is not the case. The problem was not the lack of planning. Problems arose because planning uncovered difficulties. Neo-conservatives in the Bush administration ignored the Future of Iraq Project because they did not like the results.

The Future of Iraq Project was a comprehensive U.S. government planning effort to raise Iraq from the ashes of violent conflict and establish a functioning democracy. I worked for the State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs Bureau. The Democratic Principles Working Group was tasked with developing a plan for federalism, de-Baathification and transitional justice. More than 200 Iraqis in 17 working groups produced a 1,200 page and 13-volume analysis.

There was no comparable planning for Iran. Trump expected a cakewalk and was ill-prepared for war. The Trump administration rushed to war without talking to directly affected Iranians. It expected the Iranian regime to roll over and simply surrender. So convinced of its power, it focused on target selection. The US knew there was no imminent threat. Trump had declared that Iran’s nuclear weapons program was annihilated after air strikes in June 2025. He ignored US intelligence estimates that Iran was at least ten years from having a nuclear bomb.

Before the Iraq war, the Bush administration took pains to build a coalition of allies. Trump diminished the value of allies and then rushed to recruit them when Iran put up a fight.

Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth never imagined that Iran would attack its neighbors in the Persian Gulf. In the United Arab Emirates, Iran struck Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Fujairah causing damage to oil facilities. The Fairmont Hotel was attacked and set alight. Iranian missiles and drones targeted Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and the Aramco facility in Ras Tanura. Fuel storage facilities of the US 5h fleet in Bahrain were hit. The Al Udeid Air base in Qatar and the Ahmed al-Jaber Air Base were attacked. Iranian missiles also targeted Jordan and Oman. Israel recently bombed Iran's South Pars, the world's largest natural gas field; Tehran retaliated by striking an energy complex in Qatar.

Why did the Trump administration fail to anticipate that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 percent of the world’s oil is transported. Now the US is playing catch up using 5,000-pound bunker buster bombs to reopen the Strait.

Of all the countries in the region, Iraq was the most affected. Iran and Iraq share a border of 1,500 kilometers, including an extensive frontier with Kurdistan Region. The Hashd al-Shaabi, Iranian backed paramilitaries, have doubled in size over the past two years. Hashd is about half the size of the regular military with a budget of $2.7 billion. Prominent Iranian backed Shiites armed factions, such as the Badr Organization and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, are dominant in Iraq. Hashd is the military wing of the Coordination Framework, a Shiite political alliance that dominates Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani’s government. Many Iraqis revere Qasem Suleimani, head of the Quds Force, who was killed by an American reaper drone at the Bagdad Airport on January 3, 2020 in the waning days of the first Trump administration.

Strong commercial, political and military ties exist between Iraq and Iran. The economies of Iraq and Iran are deeply intertwined. Iran supplies around a fifth of Iraq's consumer goods. Iran used Iraq to bypass US sanctions and access foreign currencies. According to the Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce, bilateral trade between Iraq and Iran amounted to $12 billion in 2024. Blocked tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz effects Iraq’s oil income, impacting its national budget and ability to pay civil servants.

The Erbil airport in Kurdistan Region has been frequently attacked by Iranian missiles and drones the war started on February 28. The Hashd al-Shaabi and a network of local paramilitaries allied with Iran when hostilities between Iran and the United States broke out last month. The Erbil agreement on power sharing in Iraq assigns the post of prime minister to a Shiite. Dawa’s Party Nouri al-Maliki is opposed by the United States for being too close to Iran.  

Shiites view martyrdom as a blessing. The Battle of Karbala in 680 AD has a central place in Shiite history, tradition, and theology. For the Shiites, Husayn's suffering, betrayal and death became a symbol of sacrifice in the struggle for justice and truth against injustice and falsehood. The battle is commemorated during Ramadan on the Day of Ashura, when Shiites whip themselves to remember Husayn’s martyrdom.

The Iranian government is putting up a fierce fight which Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, ignorant of Iranian culture and history, did not anticipate. I fear that a long war is just beginning.

David L. Phillips is an Academic Visitor at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. He worked with the US State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs Bureau on the Future of Iraq Project during the Iraq war.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Kurdistan24.