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Iran is slowly surrounding Israel with a 'ring of fire': On the West's ongoing appeasement of Tehran and refusal to see plain the IRGC's transnational Jihad
In its April 2024 issue, Fathom Journal published Iran is slowly surrounding Israel with a 'ring of fire', by analyst Kyle Orton. Fathom gives the month, not the day. The essay's news hook is Iran's missile and drone attack on Israel in the early hours of 14 April 2024. An American family should care because the ending is about US troops still in Iraq. Orton says those soldiers are formally there to protect an Iraqi government he calls part of Iran's network, and he ties that network to a plan to surround Israel.
Evidence rating: MODERATE. The rating covers Kyle Orton's signed essay in Fathom Journal: his reading of why US and allied troops remained in Iraq, and how he ties Iraq to Iran's pressure on Israel.
What the article says
Orton argues that the April attack was mostly a show, and that the deeper story is what he calls a ring of fire. He uses that phrase for a plan he attributes to Qassem Soleimani, the late commander of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The plan, as Orton describes it, was to place Revolutionary Guard units in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Iraq, and Yemen, arm them with better missiles, and wear Israel down.
Most of the essay is a history of Iranian-aligned parties and militias inside Iraq after 2003, and of how Orton thinks they became the state. He writes that in the war against ISIS, the Islamic State group, the United States in effect provided air power for Iraqi forces he says were run by that network. He writes that after ISIS was pushed back, those forces were not disbanded. They were written into the Iraqi state.
His conclusion then turns to the troops still on the ground.
"Thus, the U.S. and her allies with troops remaining in Iraq to hold ISIS down are there formally at the invitation of—and with the intention of protecting—an Iraqi government that is a keystone in the IRGC Empire."
Kyle Orton, Fathom Journal, April 2024. IRGC means the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In the next sentences he says money from Iraq helps pay for the ring of fire around Israel. He writes that the day after the April attack, Iraq's prime minister, whom he calls Iran-appointed, was received in Washington. He says the offered reason was that the visit lets the United States compete with Iran for influence. He does not treat that reason as serious. He compares it to Western aid to the Lebanese state while, in his view, the same Iranian network dominates Lebanon.
He ends by saying the West still treats Gaza, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon as separate problems, and that it does not aim at Tehran. That is his policy argument.
What other reporting and posts add
Americans in the region were hit first. In the first week of the 2026 war, six US soldiers were killed by an Iranian drone at a port in Kuwait; an AI-assistant reply on X at the time also placed them "in Kuwait." @grok, 6 March 2026. (capture: twitter/t49__v586.md) By 26 March, a pasted ZeroHedge report cited a US Central Command spokesperson for 232 US troops injured and at least 13 killed (the capture summarizes the figures rather than quoting them). (capture: twitter/t49__v583.md) See also Hegseth says US 'can't stop everything'.
Iran's own answer about US troops nearby. In September 2026, Mohsen Rezaee, described as secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, taunted: "Why don't they deploy airborne divisions? Why don't American ground forces enter Iran? Why do they only bomb from the sky and then leave?" @maxosintintel, 20 September 2026. (capture: twitter/t13__v145.md)
Israel's own ground role in 2026. Orton's argument is about US troops around Israel's enemies. In the 2026 war, Israel's Channel 12 was reported as saying Israel would support a US ground operation in Iran "with airstrikes, intelligence, and airpower, but not infantry due to ongoing fights with Hezbollah in Lebanon and its smaller population." X trend, 30 March 2026. (capture: twitter/t13__v148.md)
What it shows
A pro-Israel journal framed the American soldiers in Iraq as a piece on the board of Israel's conflict with Iran, and urged the West to aim "at Tehran." Two years later that framing became the war: American troops at bases around Iran were the ones hit first, six of them killed by an Iranian drone in Kuwait in the first week, while Israel's Channel 12 reported that Israel would back a US ground operation in Iran with airstrikes and intelligence, "but not infantry." See A Long Pattern and Israel Keeps Its Infantry Home.
Check it yourself
Why a 2024 essay matters in 2026: before the US-Israeli air war on Iran began on 28 February 2026, thousands of American troops were already stationed around Iran, in Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, and the Gulf, and they were the first Americans Iran's missiles and drones could reach. Fathom Journal is a British online magazine published by BICOM (the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre), a pro-Israel advocacy group in London; its authors generally argue for a hard line on Iran. Its authors' views on why US troops are in the region are one side of an argument, not the US government's account.
Research captures: twitter/t49__v586.md, twitter/t49__v583.md, twitter/t13__v145.md, twitter/t13__v148.md
Last Updated: 2026-09-26