A handful of weeks ago, three United States soldiers were killed in a drone attack in Jordan, an attack that was carried out by Iranian-backed proxy groups across the region. These proxy groups have been causing chaos for years, but especially since the Israel-Hamas War began on October 7th. In these last four months, American soldiers have experienced over 150 attacks in the region.
In retaliation to the American soldiers killed in Jordan, President Biden did what any president should do, and launched a retaliatory airstrike against the proxy groups involved. The strikes were carried out in Iraq and Syria, hitting over 80 targets in an afternoon. But for as grandiose as those numbers sound, it has not made a dent in the proxy group efforts. They continue firing off more attacks and keep disrupting things in the Red Sea.
Foreign policy expert Harry Kazianis says the spread of these groups makes one airstrike almost useless.
"You have to have a full military campaign to destroy all these groups...there are some in Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon...they are widely dispersed to create chaos and damage as much as they can," he says. "This is something that would take multiple day."
The US did not take multiple days, striking only once, and has not performed any serious strikes since those ordered by Biden some two weeks ago now.
But as is the case with pretty much all Democrats today, this was nothing more than political optics. Because if it was more than that, and Biden was serious about inflicting payback, he would not have told Iran for a week that the strike was coming. Which he very much did do.
"No military commander would ever telegraph their moves in any form...you do not tell the enemy you are coming," he says. "That is like Nintendo-level military strategy, and it is pretty sad we cannot even follow that."
That might be the most dumbfounding part of the entire thing. Biden gave them fair warning a strike was coming, an enemy that is responsible for three American deaths.
Thanks to Biden as well, Iran now has that extra $6 billion unfrozen to develop even more military-grade weapons, which created huge problems for us.
"Iran's military is stacked with as many as three or four thousand ballistic missiles...a lot of countries have studied U.S. military dominance...and they have concluded these missiles are part of it," he says. "Iran has now discovered this is a way to build up their military cheaply, and challenge U.S. power."
Kazianis adds that we could move every missile-defense platform we have worldwide to the Middle East, and still not be able to handle all the missiles Iran has now.
However, the U.S. has its own advancements, and we could probably take care of business without having American troops in harm's way.
"U.S. defense policy needs to think about if we need that big a ground footprint in the Middle East...we are able to use other means of military power to be in the region, but not provide ground troops that remain a target," he says. "We have always thought troops on the ground is a deterrent...but it actually seems to be having the opposite impact."
One thing is certain: if Iran keeps pushing, Biden will be backed into a corner and forced to make some tough calls as November approaches.
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