CENTCOM Commander Kenneth McKenzie assessed that “Iran still pursues a policy of attempting to eject the U.S., and indeed our partners and allies from the region as well, and that's principally fought out in the battleground that is Iraq for them”. “Over most of 2020”, he added, “they thought they had a political solution to force the U.S. out of Iraq… that is no longer the case, it’s evident from the recent Strategic Dialogue and from other signals we receive from the Government of Iraq”. McKenzie went on to posit that “you might see kinetic events spring up as a result of that in Iraq. But that is different from the larger Iranian desire to avoid a state-on-state conflict with the U.S.”