Israel’s Secret Bases in Iraq: A New Phase of Shadow Warfare in the Middle East

The revelation that Israel established secret military bases inside Iraq during the recent war against Iran is far more than another episode in the region’s long history of covert operations. It signals a deeper transformation in Middle Eastern geopolitics: the normalization of clandestine cross-border military infrastructures, the erosion of Iraqi sovereignty, and the increasingly blurred line between intelligence operations and open regional warfare.

A Forward Operating Base for War Against Iran

The geopolitical logic behind such bases is relatively straightforward. Israel’s main strategic challenge in a confrontation with Iran is distance. Iranian territory lies roughly 1,500–1,800 kilometers from Israel, depending on the target. Maintaining air operations over Iran requires forward logistics, search-and-rescue capabilities, electronic intelligence, refueling coordination, and emergency extraction capacities for downed pilots.

Iraq’s western desert offers precisely the type of terrain suited for clandestine operations: sparsely populated, strategically located, and historically difficult for central authorities to fully control. Military analysts quoted in the WSJ noted that the desert has long been used for covert deployments by various actors, including U.S. forces during the Iraq War.

What remains unclear is whether the bases existed only temporarily during the war........

© New Eastern Outlook