The attacks come in retaliation for a drone strike late last month that killed three American soldiers and wounded dozens of others.
A widening war. American forces bombed Iraq and Syria over the weekend, and more strikes are likely in the coming days. The attacks come in retaliation for a drone strike late last month that killed three American soldiers and wounded dozens of others.
The weekend attacks targeted at least 85 locations linked to the Iranian military and various militia groups supported by it. In a call with members of the media, National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby promised „additional action“ in the coming days to further degrade Iran’s ability to target American troops.
„The goal here is to get these attacks to stop,“ Kirby said. „We are not looking for a war with Iran.“
Iran likely doesn’t want a direct war with the United States either. But the two countries are already in a low-level conflict that could accelerate in ways that neither intends, warns Michael Hirsh, a journalist with extensive foreign policy experience, in an excellent piece at Politico. The combination of an overextended American military and Iran’s inability to directly control the groups it funds means that „events are on a permanent hair trigger that is constantly threatening to explode at the slightest pressure. Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, appeared to acknowledge this this week when he suggested ‚that we’ve not seen a situation as dangerous as the one we’re facing now across the region since at least 1973, and arguably even before that.'“
Separately, American and British forces carried out a series of strikes Saturday in Yeman that „hit 36 Houthi targets in 13 locations,“ according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani—the leader of the country that American troops are supposedly protecting, at American taxpayers‘ expense—visited some of the militia fighters wounded by those U.S. strikes and issued a statement condemning America’s „new aggression against Iraq’s sovereignty.
