The president of the United States and commander-in-chief of his armed forces, Joe Biden, has already decided how he will respond to the drone attack that killed three reservists on a US base in Jordan on Sunday. He announced this in a brief statement to the media from the White House, minutes before boarding Air Force One to address two campaign events in Florida. “We don’t need a regional war in the Middle East. It’s not what we’re looking for,” he assured, without going into details about the form the retaliation will take for the first three victims of the United States in the region since the war in Gaza escalated on October 7.
The attack, which was not intercepted by anti-aircraft defenses due to the confusion of the enemy drone with one of its own that was returning to base, left three dead and more than forty injured. It was at Tower 22, a US outpost located on the border between Jordan, Syria and Iraq, intended to support the anti-terrorist coalition against the Islamic State. And it was claimed by the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a grouping of Shia militias, which includes Kataeb Hizbullah and Harakat al-Nujaba, among other groups endorsed by Iran.
It is the first fatal strike of more than 160 that have hit US targets in the region. Although Ali Khamenei’s regime denies any involvement in the aggression and claims that the militias “do not receive orders” from Iran, the US considers the Persian regime as the main culprit: “I hold them responsible because they are supplying the weapons to the attackers,” Biden confirmed yesterday.
More than two days have passed since the attack and there is still no response. Pressed on this issue – by the Republican opposition and the press of the United States -, the spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, reiterated the official message: “We will respond at the time and in the form of our choice”. And he went into more detail than the president: “It is very likely that it will be a phased approach. Not a single action, but potentially multiple and sustained over time”. The “guiding principle” of the retaliation will be “to ensure that we continue to degrade the capabilities that these groups have at their disposal to use against our troops and facilities, and to send a clear signal to Iran’s supporters: these attacks are unacceptable”.
The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, noted on Monday that it is “an incredibly volatile time in the Middle East”, at a press conference in Washington. “We had not seen such a dangerous situation in the region since 1973”, he assured, referring to the Yom Kippur war, which pitted Israel against its neighboring Arab countries and which caused around 2,600 victims in just 19 days . “We propose two objectives: to defend our town when it is attacked and, at the same time, to work to prevent the conflict from spreading”.
After decades immersed in the Middle East, with the attrition that entails, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the US began to withdraw much of the military, logistical and intelligence resources it had installed in the region They did so in the belief that Russia and China posed far greater threats. However, recent events are forcing the country to refocus its efforts on the Middle East.
With presidential elections on the horizon in November, the retaliation they take in the next few hours or days will receive greater scrutiny from the opposition, the media and the electorate. Voters increasingly wary of the administration’s role in the Middle East: 60% believe it is supporting Israel “too much” or “too little,” according to a Gallup poll.
The Republicans hold the president directly responsible for the more than 160 attacks received in the region in the last three months, to which the Administration has so far responded with limited and precise attacks. The death of three United States reservists, “a tragic consequence of Biden’s weakness and surrender”, assured his likely rival in the November elections, Donald Trump. The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, expressed himself in the same way: “We cannot afford to continue to respond to this aggression with half-tones. The whole world is waiting for signs that the president is finally willing to use the force of the United States to force Iran to change its behavior. Our enemies are emboldened.”
