The US military deployment becomes Biden's weak point in the Middle East crisis

There is already a decision.

President Joe Biden assures that he already knows how the United States will respond in the Middle East to the drone attack, allegedly launched by pro-Iranian militias, that left three of its soldiers dead and another 40 injured at an outpost in Jordan.

Washington must very carefully calibrate its response at a time when the spotlight is multiplying for its 30,000 troops in the region, in a conflict that already extends beyond the war between Israel and Hamas and threatens to drag other powers into the conflict. zone.

In his decision, Biden faces a problem that has been repeated in other US administrations that experienced conflicts in the area: how to respond forcefully to avoid new attacks, but not to the point of triggering an escalation of unpredictable consequences that could transform the panorama. current.

The objective is to avoid going from the hotspots of skirmishes between pro-Iran militias and US forces in Syria, Iraq and the Red Sea to an apocalyptic scenario: a direct confrontation between the United States and Iran, which neither of the two old enemies want.

In brief statements made when he left the White House to begin a trip to Florida, Biden did not want to specify what his Government's response will be after dedicating Monday to meetings with his national security advisors on the matter.

He has cautioned that he considers Iran—which denies direct involvement in the incident—as responsible “in the sense that they supplied the weapons to the people who did this.”

But, in an admission of his dilemma, he has specified: “It doesn't seem to me that we need a major war in the Middle East.”

Multiple actions

Some brush strokes are already beginning to be drawn.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby pointed out from the Air Force One plane carrying Biden that there will not be "a single action, but potentially multiple actions... over a period of time."

This response points to a retaliation similar to that undertaken against the Houthi militias in Yemen, also backed by Iran, who attack ships in the Red Sea.

There, British and American forces have bombed the rebel groups' radar systems and missile arsenals.

“The main thing is to make sure that we continue to degrade the assets that these groups use against our troops and our facilities,” Kirby said.

When this retaliation will occur is still unclear.

It remains to be determined, among other things, which group exactly is behind the hit on the US position on the Jordan-Syria border, and how exactly the drone attack occurred.

Sunday's coup was essentially not much different from the dozens that American forces have suffered since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7.

Washington, which maintains the bulk of its troops in the region in bases in the Persian Gulf, has 3,000 soldiers stationed in Jordan, one of its most faithful allies in the region.

Also, as part of its fight against the Islamic State, it maintains around 900 in Syria - especially in the north, in Kurdish areas - and 2,500 in Iraq, with whose Government it negotiates the future of that force.

On the same Saturday, both parties had held a meeting in this regard.

A good part of these troops are stationed in places such as Tower 22, surveillance and logistics posts in remote places, and very visible from the air.

The coalition of militias known as the Islamic Resistance of Iraq has carried out nearly 140 drone and missile attacks against US forces positions.

The attack on Sunday has also been claimed, which included two other outposts in which the drones were shot down without further incident.

But the blow against Tower 22 was the first that left people dead, according to the first versions because the soldiers mistook the unmanned device for an American one.

The White House, through Kirby, has confirmed that Biden will receive the bodies of the three soldiers killed at Dover Air Base in Delaware on Friday.

This is a position in which the president hoped he would not have to be seen when in 2021 he officially declared the end of the US combat mission in Iraq, two decades after the beginning of the war that George W. Bush declared in that country.

Instead, since the beginning of the conflict in Gaza, the United States has seen attacks against its forces multiply and has reinforced its military deployment in the region.

In the eastern Mediterranean, the combat group led by the amphibious assault ship Bataan and equipped with a group of 2,500 marines, fulfills a double mission, to dissuade the pro-Iran militia Hezbollah from attacking Israel on the one hand, and to reinforce the protection of merchant ships against Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.

In those waters, the aircraft carrier Dwight Eisenhower and its combat group, with 5,000 soldiers on board, carry out a similar mission.

At the same time, American diplomats are trying to promote negotiations for a temporary ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, which, they trust, may be their best card to stabilize, at least relatively, the situation.

The pact being negotiated in Paris, where the United States is represented by the director of the CIA, William Burns, would include a suspension of the war for two months in exchange for the release of more than a hundred of the hostages it still holds. Hamas, in a more ambitious deal than the one that saw a week-long pause in bombing at the end of last November.

“The hope is that a longer period of calm and stability can create the space for more diplomacy and set in motion the conditions for a longer understanding,” says Brian Katulis, vice president of the Middle East Institute

think tank

in Washington, in a note.

Progress in those negotiations “would be a strategic triumph for the United States and its allies in the region, and a blow to Iran and its followers, who have made great progress while the conflict has dragged on.

As it considers its response to Sunday's deadly attack, the United States must keep its strategic plan and interests in mind, and design its actions to achieve those most valuable goals," says Paul Salem, president of the

think tank

.

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