Some experts say it shouldn\u2019t come as a shock that Iran is leveraging its influence with militias in Iraq to cause problems for the United States and its allies. Though Iraq has not been a focal point in the U.S.-Iran war so far, it\u2019s debatable whether this week\u2019s strikes represent the opening of a new front.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be surprised,\u201d Victoria J. Taylor, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran who is now at the Atlantic Council, told SitRep. Iraq has been \u201cfrequently pulled into regional conflict\u201d over the years, \u201cparticularly when Iran feels it\u2019s useful to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The United States in recent years has repeatedly targeted groups such as Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful militia in the PMF, in response to attacks on U.S. forces and facilities in the region. But the recent uptick in attacks by Iran-backed militias in Iraq, including on Saudi oil facilities, is part of a \u201cbroader Iranian effort to increase pressure on the United States and the region,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
The United States has warned<\/a> Iran-backed militias in Iraq to cease attacks if they hope to avoid \u201cfurther U.S. military response.\u201d But much like the U.S. air campaign against Iran has failed to break Tehran\u2019s resolve, it\u2019s also an open question whether strikes will lead to a shift in behavior from militias in Iraq linked to Tehran.<\/p>\n \u201cThe real challenge in confronting the militia activity is that the most hard-line militias within Iraq are the most responsive to the Iranian regime,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cYou can try to strike some of these bases, but it\u2019s not likely to significantly degrade the capabilities of these militias, which are very strong. They\u2019re dispersed throughout Iraq\u2014very deep networks. And it\u2019s also very unlikely to impact the decision-making. I see no evidence that Iran will think twice about directing further militia attacks if the U.S. manages to take out a small number of militia fighters.\u201d<\/p>\n The Senate confirmed Jay Clayton as the U.S. director of national intelligence on Tuesday in a 51-47 vote. Clayton will replace acting director Bill Pulte, the controversial housing official who has overseen (and boasted about<\/a>) dramatic cuts to U.S. intelligence agencies in his short tenure. Pulte is reportedly<\/a> urging U.S. President Donald Trump to delay Clayton\u2019s swearing in so that Pulte can spend a little more time in the job.<\/p>\n The Pentagon has removed<\/a> four U.S. soldiers killed in Iranian strikes earlier this month from its official Iran war casualty tally, saying it created a new category titled \u201cOverseas Operations\u201d because the U.S. military\u2019s official campaign against Iran, which it refers to as \u201cOperation Epic Fury,\u201d has ended.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the U.S. military may require some service members stationed in the Middle East to surrender their cellphones<\/a> over concerns that posting videos of Iranian strikes on U.S. bases could give away details of those bases.<\/p>\n What should be high on your radar, if it isn\u2019t already.<\/p>\n Russia escalates. A Russian missile landed in Poland during Russia\u2019s latest barrage of strikes against Ukraine, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Thursday, escalating and potentially widening the conflict<\/a> between Moscow and Kyiv.<\/p>\n Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Washington this week to attend the late Sen. Lindsey Graham\u2019s funeral and to meet with Trump. During their meeting, Zelensky reiterated<\/a> Ukraine\u2019s need for an expedited license to manufacture U.S. Patriot missile interceptors. His request comes amid reports that U.S. stockpiles of the interceptors are severely depleted (more on that below).<\/p>\n And speaking of Graham, the bill he championed for years that would place stricter sanctions on Russia cleared a key legislative hurdle on Thursday and has a smoother path to passage than it\u2019s possibly ever had, as our colleague Keith Johnson laid out in his latest piece<\/a>.<\/p>\n AI action. More than 1,000 employees of the leading artificial intelligence companies including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have co-signed a statement<\/a> calling for global governments to rein their technology in. \u201cThe world\u2019s leading AI companies believe they could be close to automating AI research,\u201d read the statement, which was also signed by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. \u201cIt is hard to predict exactly how much this will accelerate AI progress, but there is a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems.\u201d<\/p>\n Because of those risks, the statement requested that \u201cthe U.S. government support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.\u201d<\/p>\n This is not the first time that the AI industry has warned about the dangers of its own technology. In 2023, a proposal<\/a> to pause major AI experiments for six months gathered more than 30,000 signatures. But the latest push could be driven by China\u2019s recent advances<\/a> in AI, which Rishi outlined last week.<\/p>\n The dangers of AI have been in stark relief of late, with OpenAI revealing<\/a> that an autonomous hack earlier this month by one of its models went further than previously disclosed.<\/p>\n Such risks haven\u2019t deterred Centcom, however, which announced<\/a> a joint AI task force with the United Arab Emirates this week. The task force will consist of around 20 personnel from both countries who will \u201cfocus on integrating AI applications for intelligence support, protecting critical infrastructure, and monitoring the regional security environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Palestinians inspect damaged and destroyed buildings that were targeted by Israeli strikes the previous night in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on July 29.<\/p>\n Palestinians inspect damaged and destroyed buildings that were targeted by Israeli strikes the previous night in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on July 29. Eyad Baba\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth introduced a new bill<\/a> this week that aims to counter China\u2019s gray-zone tactics<\/a>\u2014aggressive activities designed to expand influence while stopping short of armed conflict, such as incursions by warships or fighter jets, economic coercion, cyberattacks, and disinformation campaigns.<\/p>\n Duckworth told SitRep that the bill, which is co-sponsored by GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn, was inspired by conversations with allies in the Indo-Pacific, including on a recent trip to Taiwan and Japan, about \u201ca lack of coordination among the nations and the U.S. when it comes to China\u2019s gray-zone activities.\u201d The legislation would direct the State Department to come up with a strategy for monitoring gray-zone activities; calls for an interagency task force to track, develop, and strengthen the tools for countering such operations; and aims to boost cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners.<\/p>\n When asked whether there\u2019s appetite for this bill in the White House at a time when critics accuse Trump of being soft on China, Duckworth said \u201cthere\u2019s a split between the Trump administration and Congress\u201d\u2014and particularly \u201cour bipartisan group who are opposed to what he\u2019s doing in terms of cozying up to [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping].\u201d Duckworth said that there\u2019s \u201ca lot of angst\u201d among Indo-Pacific leaders about the U.S. government\u2019s posture toward the region. \u201cSo, it\u2019s really good that we are introducing a bipartisan piece of legislation that basically says: America is going to remain a Pacific nation, we\u2019re going to remain a leader in the region,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Sunday, Aug. 2: Deadline for companies to comply with the European Union\u2019s Artificial Intelligence Act.<\/p>\n Tuesday, Aug. 4: Israeli and Lebanese officials are set to conduct a new round of peace negotiations in Rome.<\/p>\n Wednesday, Aug. 5: Taiwan\u2019s annual Han Kuang military exercise, meant to prepare for a potential Chinese attack, is expected to begin.<\/p>\n Friday, Aug. 7: New Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella begins his term in office.<\/p>\n 827\u2014the maximum number of Patriot missile interceptors remaining in U.S. stockpiles as of Monday, according to a new estimate<\/a> by the Center for Strategic and International Studies that was corroborated<\/a> to CNN by Pentagon sources. That\u2019s a more than 60 percent drop from the 2,330 the U.S. military had before the Iran war.<\/p>\n \u201cI told him, \u2018I want to end the war. Get the war ended.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014Trump on his meeting<\/a> this week with Zelensky, referring to the Russia-Ukraine war that Trump had pledged to end within 24 hours<\/a> of resuming office last year.<\/p>\n A Nevada judge this week dismissed<\/a> FBI Director Kash Patel\u2019s defamation lawsuit against online commentator Jim Stewartson for online posts in which Stewartson called Patel a \u201cKremlin asset\u201d who \u201cattempted to overthrow the government.\u201d Patel filed the lawsuit in 2023, long before he became FBI director. The judge ruled that the court did not have \u201cpersonal jurisdiction\u201d over Stewartson, deeming that he did not have sufficient ties to Nevada, where the lawsuit was filed. Stewartson has continued his war of words throughout the case, celebrating the dismissal on Tuesday by calling Patel (not for the first time) a \u201cchud\u201d and a \u201cgoogly-eyed Kremlin bitch\u201d in a post<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome back to Foreign Policy\u2019s Situation Report. Here\u2019s what\u2019s on tap for the day: The U.S.-Iran war goes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,157107,801,211919,14945,26681,4379,3,1206,131,13455,1208,21,19,22,20,25,24,1139,28489],"class_list":["post-794626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-homepage_regional_middle_east_africa","tag-iran","tag-iran-u-s","tag-iraq","tag-middle-east-and-north-africa","tag-military","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-science-and-technology","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-war","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Palestinians](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2287463679.jpg\")
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