The United States attacks in the city of al-Qaim in Iraq/use according to Article 27 A of the Copyright Law
In the days since a suicide drone killed three American soldiers at an outpost in Jordan and last night's attacks, Washington has sent public and behind-the-scenes messages about its intentions to retaliate against Iran-backed Shiite militias. Parts of the American right called for a direct attack on Tehran, while others feared direct action against the Islamic Republic. will lead to an all-out war in the Middle East.
President Joe Biden, who was drawn into the regional conflict that began here with the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7, chose a much more measured retaliatory action, the main drawback of which was the lack of surprise effect. His administration leaked throughout the past week his intentions to harm in the Revolutionary Guards and the militias supported by them, and they went into absorption alert and evacuated positions and weapons depots.
Iran, whose Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered, according to a report in the New York Times, to avoid conflict at almost all costs, did its part. It disavowed the deadly attack in Jordan and repeated its claims that the militias They do not receive direct instructions from her. One of them, the Hezbollah brigades, which according to the estimates was the one that launched the UAV, even announced a temporary cessation of attacks against the American forces.
At the same time, American officials worked night and day to explain that there is no information indicating that Tehran knew about or approved the attack, and on the other hand, it must pay a certain price for its support of the militias, but not one that would oblige it to react harshly.
The American public does not want another war in the region.
Biden next to the coffins of the soldiers killed in Jordan, yesterday/Reuters
It is difficult to know yet what the exact results of last night's attack in Syria and Iraq, during which fighter jets, bombers and drones bombed 85 targets of the Quds Force in the Revolutionary Guards and the militias in seven different targets. and some of their supply lines, and in a video published from the Iraqi border city of al-Qaim, large explosions were seen in what appeared to be a weapons warehouse.
But in the first hours after the American announcement of the beginning of the military response to the killing of the soldiers, the militias attacked bases with an American presence in Syria and Iraq. Although they ended without casualties , like the vast majority of the approximately 170 attacks by the militias on American forces in the region since October 7, but as the attack in Jordan at the beginning of the week proved - just one mishap is enough to cause painful losses. Biden,
whose support for Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip may cost him another term , promised that the response against the militias would continue for a long time. Those in his Democratic Party expressed satisfaction with the limited action, while Republican members of Congress believed that it was weak and too late.
Despite their criticism, their expected candidate in the November election, former President Donald Trump, also did not say that there was an attack Iran directly.
He linked Biden's "weakness" to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and claimed that under his leadership they would not have broken out, but did not express his support for a new war by the United States in the Middle East.
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Biden: I have decided how we will respond to the attack in Jordan, we don't need a wide war
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Iran denied involvement in the attack in Jordan.
A woman holds a picture of Khamenei in Tehran/Reuters
And for good reason: the majority of the American public, on the right and the left, abhors the idea of sending their sons and daughters to the region again, and some even wonder what the United States is doing there in the first place.
A new survey by the AP news agency even showed that most Americans believe that Israel has gone too far in its war in Gaza, with the main change coming from the Republican direction.
The problem with Biden's restrained approach is that a storm may actually mean a greater escalation, as in the case of the Houthis in Yemen.
They rampaged for months without the West lifting a finger, until the United States, Britain and other countries began attacking their targets.
But even the limited campaign against the Houthis does not deter them as of now, and they were a step away - a little more than a kilometer - from hitting an American destroyer in the Red Sea this week.
The most likely scenario for stopping the attacks by the militias supported by Iran is a ceasefire in Gaza, and therefore the Biden administration is pressuring Israel to reduce the scope of activity in the Strip, as well as the mediating countries to convince Hamas to accept the terms of the deal.
If both sides continue to entrench their positions and the war continues, the United States will continue to find itself in the line of fire and suffer harassment from the militias.
They are the ones who dictate the pace, followed by Washington, which reluctantly already finds itself deeper in the Middle Eastern mire than it had hoped.
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