US General Insists That Iran Missiles Were “Intended” To Kill American Forces.

TRACKING >Following the Iranian missiles strike at US bases in Iraq, many were sceptical of what could be the next action of the US as the world awaited president Trump to address the US on Wednesday. But Donald Trump however in his address later on Wednesday, to Americans and the world at large spoke in a manner that deescalated the war tension that had built up between Iran and the US.

In his address Trump acknowledged the Iranian retaliatory strike at two US bases in Iraq, but however said the US won’t proceed further to make real it’s earlier counter threat of striking 52 sites in Iran. This was a great relief for the international community who had been gravely concerned about the many possible serious consequences, a war between the US and Iran will cause in the Middle East.

Trump’s reasoning was that Iran’s retaliatory missiles strike caused no casualty to neither Iraq where the US bases are nor to the US forces who occupy those basis. So there was no need for further military action.

However, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of the US is insisting that the Iranian missiles strike was intended to kill American Forces. He believes Iran’s missile strikes on two Iraqi bases were intended to kill Americans. Milley who spoke to reporters along with Defence Secretary Mark Esper is insisting that “the 11 ballistic missiles that landed at al-Asad air base in western Iraq inflicted moderate damage, such as destroying or damaging tents and a helicopter, but no Americans were killed or injured. I believe based on what I saw and what I know is that they were intended to cause structural damage, destroy vehicles and equipment and aircraft and to kill personnel,” General Milley added that the fact that no one was killed was due to the defensive procedures and the effectiveness of U.S. early warning system.

No one knows the extent to which this line of thought will go in changing government’s opinion and, or decision about taking the option of economic sanctions than direct military confrontation. Even if it has no effect on the Trump’s no more military confrontation decision, it will however affect the seriousness and dept of the intended US sanctions that will be placed on Iran by the Trump administration.

For one could recall that as soon as Trump came into power after the 2016 US election, he pulled out of the nuclear agreement with Iran that the US under Obama had signed along with China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and Germany representing the EU; and they were known as the P5+1. From this moment it was clear that it won’t be too long that a clash between the US and Iran would happen, as it did with the killing of the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. Also, while withdrawing from the agreement in May 2018, President Trump claimed that the agreement failed to address Iran’s ballistic missile program as well as Iran’s role in regional wars. So the United States reimposed sanctions on Iran and even moved to stop Iran’s oil exports, which prompted Iran to resume some of its nuclear activities; until the killing of Soleimani by the US and the retaliatory, which is leading to the announcement by the Trump government of the intention to resume sanctions on Iran.

Now that President Trump has returned to the economic sanctions regime over Iran, no one is sure if the Iran unfrozen assets following the 2015 nuclear agreement will be refrozen, and whether Iran will still be able to access the fund that were hitherto unfrozen in the 2015 nuclear deal. No matter how it goes, and whatever the limit of the sanctions the average Iranian is the one to bear the pains arising from such action of the US; and the possibility of other economic powers playing along cannot be ruled out.

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