The Middle East is back to being a full-blown military crisis, with Israel and Hamas happily drowning each other in a bloody Gaza battlefield, and with Yemeni rebels staging drone and missile attacks on shipping lanes, and now with extremist forces in Syria staging deadly attacks on a U.S. outpost along the Jordanian border (via Zeke Miller and Lolita C Baldor at AP News):
President Joe Biden said Sunday that the U.S. “shall respond” after three American troops were killed and dozens more were injured in an overnight drone strike in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border. Biden blamed Iran-backed militias for the first U.S. fatalities after months of strikes by such groups against American forces across the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Biden, who was traveling in South Carolina, asked for a moment of silence during an appearance at a Baptist church’s banquet hall.
“We had a tough day last night in the Middle East. We lost three brave souls in an attack on one of our bases,” he said. After the moment of silence, Biden added, “and we shall respond...”
The large drone struck a logistics support base in Jordan known as Tower 22. It is along the Syrian border and is used largely by troops involved in the advise-and-assist mission for Jordanian forces.
Central Command said approximately 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel were deployed to the base. The three who were killed and most of the wounded were Army soldiers, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to give details not yet made public.
The small installation, which Jordan does not publicly disclose, includes U.S. engineering, aviation, logistics and security troops. Austin said the troops were deployed there “to work for the lasting defeat of ISIS.” Three officials said the drone struck near the troops’ sleeping quarters, which they said explained the high casualty count...
We are facing here in the states calls by the usual suspects of neoconservative foreign policy rabblerousers still eager for major military strikes - if not straight-up invasion - of Iran. Never mind how most of these "bomb Tehran" advocates are refusing to provide any military aid to Ukraine against a major global threat to democracy in Russia.
Whatever threat Iran poses to American interests abroad - and it is serious - we have to recognize how Iran and Russia are linked at the hips in their efforts to disrupt the Middle East. They've teamed up to provide military support to Syria - the source of that deadly attack - as well as providing aid through Syria to anti-Israeli forces like Hamas and Hezbollah.
As much as Iran hates the U.S. on their own terms, they're just the front, the public face of the bigger threat of Putin backing the Ayatollahs in order to give Putin what he needs: A major distraction for the United States to abandon NATO and Ukraine to Russian conquest. (Think Sollozzo and Tattaglia fronting for Barzini all along).
Going into a direct war with Iran is still a bad idea, same as I said years ago when trump was threatening to invade. If the U.S. goes barging in, we'll be doing it mostly on our own as our regional allies are either too busy committing war crimes (Israel) or unable to engage without disruptions in their own nations (Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Jordan). NATO won't engage because they'll be too wary of Putin's ambitions to send their military forces elsewhere.
If there's any good news, it's that Iran won't be in any decent shape to engage in war themselves, having shipped off a lot of their own weaponry to Russia's war effort and dealing with internal unrest that the U.S. could exploit instead of sending in troops.
Biden has difficult choices ahead. "Proportional responses" by bombing specific Iranian - or Syrian, considering how they are the proxies to Iran's involvement - military hubs hasn't worked well as deterrents before. More aggressive attacks would escalate in ways our regional allies would regret.
It's not helping that the Republicans in Congress - especially the House - are refusing to provide any kind of military funding to allow Biden a free hand in whatever foreign policy decision he makes here. Especially considering how obvious it is that Putin benefits from Middle East turmoil - to where providing more military and financial aid to Ukraine would actually help our efforts to calm the region - and so trump's political allies do not want to upset that apple cart.
I would not argue for war with Iran. I would look to doing something to cut into Syria's military capabilities, and something to support the Iranian citizenry's efforts to end the theocratic despotism hurting them. Anything to avoid another quagmire as our nation tries to bring the bloodshed in Gaza to a peaceful end.
1 comment:
Attacking Iran would be a dumb move. It would likely drive the younger segment of Iran's population back into the arms of the mullahs. As it stands, they will sooner or later take over Iran and change it for the better. Best to try and let them do so.
I worked as a line cook under a chef who came from Iran. He was hilarious. He also said "The Ayatollah? He's not going anywhere. Shit, his dad's still alive..."
-Doug in Sugar Pine
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