Situation Report: Waiting in Vienna; drones over Libya; Iranian-backed militias fly flags on U.S. tanks; Iraq says launching big op in Anbar, again; and lots more

By Paul McLeary and Adam Rawnsley

Extended stay. There is still no deal between the P5+1 and Tehran on the future of Iran’s nuclear program, despite increasingly confident talk on Sunday from diplomats on both sides that a deal was imminent. The third self-imposed deadline to sign a pact to halt work on the Iranian program in return for sanctions relief is set to expire at midnight on Monday, and negotiators continue to haggle their way toward a fourth extension.

Some of the points that have held up the deal in recent days include Tehran’s insistence that the U.N. lift its arms embargo and any U.N. Security Council resolution green lighting the deal be constructed in a way that no longer describes Iran’s nuclear activities as illegal.

FP’s Dan De Luce reminds us that while a skeptical Congress will have to sign off on any deal, Republicans likely won’t have the votes to override an expected presidential veto if the Hill rejects it. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News Sunday that any deal agreed to in Vienna would be “a very hard sell in Congress.” The Republican senator said he hoped Democrats will take a close look at any accord but acknowledged the difficulty of overcoming a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority, saying that an agreement will “likely be approved and passed.”

New front in drone war. Just when you’ve reacquainted yourself with the sectarian fault lines in Iraq and Syria, Libya comes back to rocket to the top of the front page. The U.S. is looking to establish drone bases closer to Libya in order to keep an eye on the country’s growing Islamic State presence, the Wall Street Journal reports, but is having a hard time convincing the country’s neighbors to take them up on the offer.

For years, U.S. intelligence and military officials have struggled with trying to get a grip on the realities on the ground in Libya, and consider it one of Washington’s most pressing “blind spots,” according to an official who spoke to the Journal. Just last July, 156 U.S. Marines and embassy staff packed into SUVs and made a dash from the American embassy in Tripoli to the Tunisian border, driving through militia checkpoints along the way while watched by U.S. air power from above.

The evacuation was the second time that the State Department shut down its Libya mission since 2011, which doesn’t include the tragic September 2013 killings of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, along with U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

Not the friendly skies. American and Syrian warplanes apparently had something of a close encounter this past weekend in the skies over the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, in Syria. A release put out by the U.S.-led coalition on Sunday said that while U.S. warplanes hit Raqqah with six airstrikes on Saturday, Syrian aircraft also conducted airstrikes within the city “near the timeframe of Coalition forces.” The Syrian airstrikes were not coordinated with the coalition, and the closest that coalition strikes came to the city center was about 7km away, where they hit several bridges.

Another week begins with more nuke wrangling with Iran, the fight with the Islamic State, and whatever else comes down the National Security pipeline. We’re looking at all of it here at SitRep but if you spot anything interesting, pass along some links. Hit up paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or on Twitter: @paulmcleary and @adamrawnsley.

Iraq

The Baghdad government claimed on Monday to have kicked off an offensive to push the Islamic State out of Anbar province, though what exactly that means so far is unclear. Spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool appeared on Iraqi television to announce the start of the operation at dawn on Monday — which he said was being backed by Shiite and Sunni militias — followed by a statement by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abad where he promised that government forces would “take revenge from Daesh criminals on the battlefield,” and would “expel them from the land of Iraq.”

One of those Iranian-backed Shiite militias, the Badr Organization, looks to be in the possession of a U.S. M1 Abrams tank. The Long War Journal got a hold of some pictures of the Shiite fighters posing in front of a tank, with a Badr flag flying on top. The Badr Organization, of course, is actually led by a senior member of the Iraqi government, Hadi al Ameri, Iraq’s Minister of Transportation. Ameri has been closely tied to Iran, and specifically to its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — so much so that during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Badr fought with the Iranians against the Sunni army of Saddam Hussein. Ameri is also linked to Qods Force commander Qasem Soleimani, gushing to the New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins in 2013 that “I love [Qasem Soleimani]! He is my dearest friend.”

When it comes to Sunni militias, it looks like U.S. Marines from the “Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force – Crisis Response – Central Command,” — or the hardly less unwieldy acronym SPMAGTF-CR — have pushed 500 Sunni tribal fighters through a training program at the al-Taqaddum military base in Anbar. There’s even a video on Facebook of an Iraqi soldier firing one of the 2,000 AT-4 anti-armor weapons supplied by the U.S. Only recently, the number Iraqi trainees managed to reach the number of American trainers on the ground in Iraq, with about 3,500 trainers, and the same number of trainees.

Islamic State

A British rapper once known as L Jinny who joined the jihadist group two years ago and was pictured with a severed head in Raqqa has become disillusioned with the group and is on the run, reports say. His dad, Adel Abdel Bari, was sentenced to 25 years in a U.S. prison in February for this ties to the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Who’s where when

1:30 p.m. Christine Wormuth, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

UK/Drones

America’s cousins across the Atlantic are taking a similar approach to defense spending priorities as the United States. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s told U.K. defense chiefs that he wants to spend more money on drones and special operations forces. At the moment, the Brits are no stranger to drones. The U.K. has over 500 of them, including some of the few armed Reaper drones the U.S. exports, with plans to make a third of the Royal Air Force’s fleet unmanned by 2030.

Defense Industry

As the Pentagon tries to reach out to Silicon Valley in an attempt to benefit from innovative new technologies, defense firms are following suit and creating smaller innovation hubs around the country. Across the country, defense firms are starting up venture capital funds and technology incubators in order to get in on the ground floor of new technologies and quickly integrate into defense products.

China

China is hard at work building a new platform in the East China Sea, raising fears in Japan that the structure could be used as yet another host to extend the range Chinese military assets in the region. The platform is near a series of offshore gas fields that China is developing but Japan’s Defense Minister says it could be used to host Chinese military radar or as a launchpad for drones or helicopters.

Japan

Don’t call it a thaw, but it is something. Shotaro Yachi, the head of Japan’s National Security Council is heading to China at some point in the next week to pave the way for a possible visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Straits Times reports. Yachi’s job is to set things up for a meeting between Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping that may come around a Sept. 3 ceremony in Beijing to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Japanese companies are putting the country’s legacy of post-war pacifism behind them, jumping into the global defense market a year after Abe lifted restrictions on arms exports. With little combat experience, small production runs and a several decade gap behind its rivals, the competition is stiff for Japanese firms. Nonetheless, Japanese products with dual use in the civilian market remain competitive and Japan hopes other products, like its Soryu-class diesel submarines and a forthcoming amphibious assault vehicle, could find markets abroad and help solidify defense relationships with other countries in the region uneasy about China’s aggressive approach to its maritime claims.

Russia

Russia’s increased optempo as it tries to intimidate its neighbors in Europe following the invasion of Ukraine may be responsible for the spate of jet and bomber accidents that have plagued its air forces in recent months. A Russian Defense Ministry source claims that the crashes have resulted from pushing older aircraft beyond operational limits and the shortage of skilled pilots available to fly them. Russia’s still-struggling defense industry and lack of attention to the sustainment of older aircraft may have also contributed to the recent incidents.

Mexico

Mexico’s most notorious cartel leader and escape artists has, once again, busted out of prison, embarrassing the Mexican government and law enforcement agencies. Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, leader of Mexico’s ruthless Sinaloa cartel, escaped with help from a mile-long tunnel leading from his cell. Guzman had previously been the subject of a nation-wide manhunt following his ascension to becoming the country’s most-wanted man following a previous escape from prison. The scale of custom infrastructure facilitating Guzman’s escape has all eyes on prison officials as facilitating the escape. As The New Yorker‘s Patrick Radden Keefe writes, “If a man like [Chapo] can buy his freedom in Mexico today, then there is nothing in the country…not for sale.”

Think tanked

Way up at the top of SitRep this morning we wrote about U.S. drones potentially flying over Libya. The Rand Corp. has just released a mammoth new study of the 2011 air war that NATO launched against the regime of Muammar al-Qaddafi, including a hard look at the role that each coalition country played, the limits of air power and what lessons can be learned from the operation.