I'm going to ask a question:
Why is IWL a threat you wish to focus on?
People created the IWL, but have actually done nothing to actually make it a dynamic entity. Aside from a few wiki articles, I'll be frank: I actually don't believe they exist. I think it's an idea they made up, and as time grew it felt more infeasible and they just gave up on it. Those wiki articles could be exfoliated from the wiki, and I wouldn't give a damn, because I mostly don't think of them as being very credible. They've mostly no place in the timeline we're in, especially after the DATASS alliance.
And yet you seem so hung up on them, even though they've not been manifested in a long time. And yet, you bring up those quote and try to make them seem like they are significant. Your premise doesn't really excite me; I find it... trivial. There's also my belief, built on my GMing experience, that the best villain for me are typically those I invent. In example: Melisson's made much of an impression than Eve or Kikyo. Melisson's entirely made up, Eve and Kikyo are borrowed. I kind of think it'd likely be the same for you.
The Ixari, like the Phodians and Kodians, are old SARP stuff. The latter ones, you've repurposed in absence of their creators. I kind of think the former could have the same happen, and would be an hell of a more credible antagonist simply because they've been withdrawn and kind of unscrutable - you could easily deliver your plot's premise of a machine-race army going hostile flaring up without the complications behind borrowing elements of the IWL and be facedwith probable "they're too smart to do stuff like that", "nuh huh, that wouldn't do them in, they'd have a more-clever-than-you-are contigency plan", etc etc...
I fully think you're capable of brilliantly GMing such a premise, Wes. But I'm more enthused by it being a vehicle to give a new interpretation of a loose end from one of your past plots, rather than it being a justified effort to eliminate a faction made to OoCly one-up yours. I hardly think the IWL deserves the effort inherent in that kind of attention. The Ixari, by contrast, propose a win-win situation from my perspective - one free of OoC politicking so that you can focus on just making a good Open RP with this.