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A Region on Edge: Mideast Officials Scramble to Anticipate Iranian
Retaliation

Jamie Dettmer

   No one knows where Iran may strike to avenge the killing Friday of its
   top general in a U.S. drone strike, but few believe Tehran won't
   retaliate, and it has plenty of possible targets to pick proxies in
   Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen to carry out reprisals, warn analysts.

   U.S. allies - some of whom complain they weren't forewarned of the plan
   to eliminate Gen. Qassem Soleimani-- are drafting contingency plans to
   cope with the fallout. President Donald Trump has warned the U.S. will
   strike Iran "very fast and very hard," if it takes retaliatory action,
   saying the Pentagon has identified 52 Iranian targets, including some
   "very high level" cultural sites.

   British military chiefs are counseling Downing Street to consider
   dispatching more soldiers to bolster security for the 400 servicemen
   the country already has in Iraq, and the more than 1,000 stationed
   across the Gulf.

   That advice so far has been rejected with Prime Minister Boris Johnson
   instead ordering British troops in Iraq to be given heavier weaponry
   and for their mission to be switched from training local forces to
   guarding British diplomats from revenge strikes by Iran after the
   assassination of Soleimani, who was seen in Washington and London as a
   terror chief. London fears that Iranian proxies could storm the British
   embassy compound in Baghdad to kill or abduct British citizens.

   Britain's defense secretary, Ben Wallace, ordered Sunday two Royal Navy
   warships in the Gulf to begin "close escort" of oil tankers amid fears
   that Iran could seize or sink western ships. "We have a plan A and a
   plan B and a break the glass' plan, if it all kicks off. Our forces in
   the region have been told to reorientate towards force protection," a
   senior British official said.

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