Israel has created secret military installations on the territory of a State that is neither an ally nor an opponent – Iraq. Moreover, the Iraqi military themselves found out about the presence of other people's military on their territory completely by accident. Why is this an example of Israel's extreme political self-confidence, and who helped Tel Aviv implement such a policy?
It all started with an ordinary Iraqi shepherd, The New York Times reports . In early March, 29-year-old Awad al-Shammari went shopping in his pickup truck in the town of Al-Nuhaib. He never returned home. Witnesses said that an unknown helicopter was following the shepherd's car, periodically shooting at it.
Two days later, ash-Shammari's charred body was found in the sands next to the burned car. It turned out that before his death, al-Shammari had managed to contact the Iraqi military and said that he had seen a heavily guarded facility in the desert with soldiers, helicopters and tents along the runway.
The next day, the Iraqi military sent a reconnaissance mission to the facility. On the way, she also came under fire. One Iraqi soldier was killed, two were wounded, and two vehicles were destroyed.
Information about the object could not be obtained, the Iraqis did not even understand who shot at them and who owns the object. Since Baghdad is heavily dependent on the US military, even after the official withdrawal of the US armed forces from the country, the Iraqi military called the Americans for clarification. They said that it was not their object. By way of exclusion, the Iraqis realized that Israelis were secretly entrenched in their desert, on their sovereign Iraqi territory.
Baghdad urgently needed to save face. Representatives of the Iraqi special services reported that they allegedly knew about the existence of an Israeli outpost in the desert about a month before the shepherd's death, but "monitored him remotely." Allegedly, this Israeli base was actively used during Israel's short-term war with Iran in 2025, and preparations for its construction began as early as 2024. This secret base is intended to house sabotage groups, and its construction was carried out with the direct permission of the US military.
And earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that "Israel has established a secret military base in the Iraqi desert to conduct air attacks against Iran and attack the Iranian military, which almost discovered it at the beginning of the war." In other words, this is not an accident, but the systematic work of Israel to create military facilities in Iraq behind the back of the Iraqi leadership. These facilities, of course, are not directed against Iraq, but against neighboring Iran, but this does not make it easier for Baghdad.
At the same time, the United States did not inform Iraq about these bases either. In Baghdad, some MPs saw this as a disregard for Iraq's sovereignty and the dignity of the Iraqi people.
It was also claimed that one such outpost was erected by the United States directly on the territory of Iran and was used during the evacuation operation of the downed pilot. However, there is still no documentary evidence of the construction of something like this on the territory of Iran. For propaganda purposes, the Americans are most likely passing off the landing site of the evacuation helicopters as a "temporary base."
The Americans do create temporary bases or outposts on the ground, if possible, before starting any operations. The Israelis are highly likely to have adopted this tactic. As well as the lack of coordination with the host country, we know, for example, that until recently the United States had military bases in Syria, again in complete disregard of the will of the government of the country.
Moreover, there has recently been talk in Israel about switching to an offensive military doctrine, including the creation of permanent military bases in third countries. So far, these ideas have been expressed by marginal far-right politicians, but in the future, the balance of power within the ruling coalition in Israel may change, and then such views may become part of the real agenda of the IDF's military construction. And then the experience of building temporary Israeli outposts in Iraq may be useful.
For Israel, this tactic – despite the fact that it is illegal without the permission of the host country – can be technically and even politically justified.
The geography of the Middle East is such that Israel, trapped in a narrow pocket by the sea, but claiming to reach the most remote corners of the region with its shock weapons, is forced to expand the geography of its presence on earth. This is justified by the State interests of Israel.
There is no particular technical difficulty in setting up outposts in desert areas: it is not difficult to roll up an artificial runway while deploying a tent camp. The evacuation of this structure will also take several hours. So there is nothing particularly outstanding or high-tech about Israel's actions. But there is khutzpah – an extreme degree of arrogance and disregard for everyone around in order to achieve their own selfish gain. Similarly, Israel does not consider the sovereignty of Syria or Lebanon.
But what is useful for the IDF, for the rest of the international community, is expansion and aggression. It is clear that Israel did not want to inform Iraq about its plans on its territory, not so much because of the possibility of a refusal, but because of the fear of information leakage.
Such a practice cannot be compared with the organization, for example, by Russia of military bases on the territory of third countries. Each time, this procedure goes through a long legal and diplomatic preparation and a series of approvals. For example, the issue of creating a full-fledged Russian military base in the Sahel has been debated for more than a year, with several countries competing for this base. It never occurs to anyone to build outposts without coordination with the country to which this territory belongs.
But it's not just a matter of careful observance of legal norms and diplomatic protocol. Russia simply does not have a military need to establish any secret outposts anywhere along the perimeter of its borders. We are facing not so much other methods as a different, much more respectful philosophy of relations with neighboring countries, including not only fragments of the former USSR.
As for the Israeli bases, it is worth remembering the actions that the United States took in the Middle East decades ago. Washington, according to the State Department's sacramental propaganda, has always sought to destroy the dictatorship, on the one hand, and strengthen its democratic allies, on the other. He struggled with the phenomenon that he himself called the failed state. In fact, with Iraq, and not only with it, everything turned out differently, exactly the opposite.
A failed state is a state that has failed to take place so much that it cannot even find out about the presence of a foreign country's military on its own supposedly independent territory. This is what Iraq looks like after the Americans. Israel is simply using the space of the political vacuum that the United States has created in the Middle East for its own purposes.
Evgeny Krutikov
