‘Signals from the White House consistently indicate a strategy focused on containing the threat posed by Iran’
The United States has vowed to avenge the killing of three of its service personnel in Sunday’s unprecedented drone attack on Jordanian soil. How exactly it will do so, however, remains unclear.
The Biden administration and the Pentagon have directly blamed Iran-backed militias that have carried out approximately 165 attacks against U.S. troops since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October and vowed retaliatory action. While these militia attacks have wounded a number of U.S. personnel, Sunday’s attack was the first that caused fatalities.
In a Tuesday press briefing, President Biden indicated that his administration has decided how to retaliate. While he did not give any details, he said he doesn’t want a “wider war in the Middle East.”
The U.S. military “will respond at a time and manner of our choosing,” Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder reiterated on Tuesday
“The U.S. is likely sending strong messages to Iran through back channels that an expansive target list of Iranian, not just Iranian proxy, targets will be attacked, outside of Iran,” Nicholas Heras, senior director of strategy and innovation at the New Lines Institute, told me.
Kataib Hezbollah, one of the leading Iran-backed Iraqi groups targeting American forces, announced a suspension of its operations on Tuesday, ordering its members to take a self-defensive posture, possibly in preparation for American strikes.
Heras doubts the timing of Kataib Hezbollah’s announcement was merely coincidental, noting the group is a “direct proxy” of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps paramilitary.
“Its decision to enter a cessation of its operations is likely an Iranian attempt to reign in this Iraqi proxy and align its activities more tightly with Iran’s larger strategy of pressuring the United States without killing Americans directly,” Heras said.
