President Joe Biden on Thursday launched military airstrikes against two Iranian-backed militias in Syria in retaliation for a recent spate of aggressions, including a rocket attack in Iraq last week that injured US troops and killed a Filipino contractor.
In the strike, Biden’s first known military action since taking office, the US hit seven targets with seven bombs used by the groups Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada to smuggle weapons. As of now, it’s unclear if anyone was hurt or killed, though US officials expect about “a handful of people” may have died, the Washington Post reported.
Politico reported Biden chose the “middle” option presented to him. The other plans remain unknown.
A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about sensitive discussions, told me the administration’s thinking behind the airstrikes was that it needed to “send a message that the US will not turn a blind eye to attacks on our forces by Iranian-sponsored militias.”
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the president ordered the “proportionate military response” to send “an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect American and Coalition personnel. At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner that aims to de-escalate the overall situation in both eastern Syria and Iraq.”
The strikes occurred around 6 pm Eastern time and had been planned over several days, according to the Wall Street Journal. Biden made the decision this morning, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters on Thursday.
“I’m confident in the target that we went after, we know what we hit,” the secretary said, noting he advised Biden to launch the strikes. “We’re confident that that target was being used by the same Shia militants” who attacked US troops last week.
Some experts are already applauding the president’s decision.
“This was a golden move by the Biden administration,” said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shia militias at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, because it let Tehran know the new American team is willing to strike Iranian-linked targets wherever they operate throughout the Middle East. “This is the administration saying ‘we mean business.’”
It was also a way of sending that message without angering Iraq, Smyth added, which bristled at US airstrikes on Iranian proxies in Iraq during the Trump administration, seeing them as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. Targeting a weapons facility in Syria avoids that problem.
Others, like the Institute for Policy Studies’ Phyllis Bennis, believe the decision was unnecessarily “provocative and dangerous.”
“Is this what ‘‘America is Back’ is supposed to mean?” she asked rhetorically.
The question now is what the retaliatory attack might mean for the Biden administration’s effort to reenter the Iran nuclear deal. Washington agreed to join an informal meeting with Iran brokered by the European Union, but Tehran said it was still “considering” the offer. It’s possible the regime might balk at future talks after Biden’s action.
Even so, it seems Biden calculated that protecting US troops operating in the Middle East from attacks by Iranian proxies takes priority over that diplomatic process. In so doing, he became the latest president to order a military operation in the Middle East.
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