3 Americans Were Killed In A Drone Strike. How Should The US Respond?
3 Americans were killed in a drone strike. How should the US respond? First, an assessment must be made of what exactly happened. Iran has denied responsibility for the attack, but it is likely that they had a hand in it. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for the strike. This group, like the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah, and Hamas, is backed by Iran.
The difference though, is that the Islamic Resistance in Iraq is much less organized around Iranian directives. They are looser and are less impacted by Tehran’s wishes. Thus, it is possible that the strike on US troops could have happened without Iranian knowledge or consent.
Regardless of whether Tehran had direct knowledge of the event, they are the cause of the situation we find ourselves in. The Iranian backed Houthis have been attacking US ships in the Red Sea at the same time Hezbollah has fired rockets at Israel from Lebanon. All of this while Israel is attempting to defeat Hamas after the October 7th terrorist attacks.
Even if Iran doesn’t control or approve every specific action their proxies take, they are the ones creating the danger and chaos in the Middle East. Iran is the reason so many terror groups are operating. It is the Iranian regime that is stopping peace in the region.
We should remember that Israel was on the path to normalizing relations with much of the Islamic world. In fact, that might have been why October 7th happened. It is yet to be officially confirmed, but it is quite probable that Iran gave Hamas the go ahead for, as well as helped Hamas plan, the October 7th terror attacks.
These attacks necessitated a comprehensive Israeli response. Hamas has to be eradicated. But of course, with the conditions that Hamas and much of the Islamic world has created, that is Hamas spending hundreds of billions of dollars in aid on rockets and tunnels, rather than transform Gaza into a livable area, and Jordan and Egypt refusing to take Palestinians in, and of course, Hamas using human shields and operating under hospitals, this Israeli action has resulted in countless Palestinian deaths.
Of course, these events and images have gotten the Islamic world into a frenzy. Thus, the leadership of Saudi Arabia and other nations in the region cannot go forward with normalization with Israel. Iran is trying to exert its influence in the Middle East. Not just against the US and Israel. Against Saudi Arabia. In addition to being unreservedly against the US and Israel and their values, Iran wants to lead the Islamic world
President Biden has promised that the US will respond strongly to these drone attacks. But he is in a difficult situation. The President must respond in a forceful manner. Anything less than a comprehensive response to the murder of American soldiers would rightly be viewed as a capitulation.
But on the other hand, Biden must be careful not to respond with something so forceful that it escalates into a full blown conflict between the US and Iran. The President is being implored to act from all sides of the spectrum. Some want Biden to strike Iran itself. Others want the US to withdraw from the Middle East completely.
Ironically, the US had recently intimated that it was open to withdrawing troops from Iraq. Now, such a withdrawal will not happen. Things have been heating up, but this is different. 3 Americans were killed in a drone strike. So how should the US respond?
The US must do 3 things. One, respond in a way that is more damaging to the group that perpetrated this than how much the US has been damaged by our 3 deaths. The US cannot go tit for tat. It has to establish and maintain dominance. Two, the US must do something that deters any group from attempting to kill American soldiers.
This can be done through a combination of targeted strikes and back channel messaging to these groups that if they try this again, the price they will pay will be beyond any gain they could obtain by killing Americans. If there is no deterrence goal, then the response will be unproductive.
Finally, the US must do this while also preventing the situation from getting out of control. The US cannot afford a conflagration in the Middle East. Not when Israel must achieve victory in its goals. And not when the US also must continue to support Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively.
This is admittedly a very tough needle to thread. But with the power and intelligence the US has, it can be done. I cannot offer what such a response would look like specifically. But that is only because I am not privy to all the details of what is going on in the region. The aforementioned 3 things the US must do are guidelines that it must follow as we decide specifically what to do.
This is a very tense time. There are battles flaring up in many areas. They have overlaps, as well as their own specific context. Responding effectively requires a deft touch, and strategic thinking. There may not be a perfect answer. But a sufficient response is possible, and the US has no choice but to find it.