There were repeated Iran-backed rocket strikes against Americans in Iraq throughout the last year totaling an estimated 25 separate attacks under the Biden administration.These attacks have mostly gone unpunished.While Iran and the media eagerly link the latest wave of Iranian attacks on American forces to the death of General Soleimani, they conveniently forget that the U.S. took him out in response to multiple attacks such as these, including the 2019 rocket attack that killed an American contractor and wounded four American servicemen, and the attempt by Iranian proxies to recreate Benghazi with an attack on our embassy in Baghdad.

A U.S. contractor was killed and another contractor and five U.S. service members were injured when a self-destructing drone struck a maintenance facility on a coalition base in northeast Syria on Thursday, the Pentagon said in a statement.U.S. intelligence analysts concluded that the drone was of “Iranian origin,” according to the Pentagon statement, which said the attack took place near Hasaka at 1:38 p.m. local time.In response, at President Biden’s direction, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said he ordered airstrikes against facilities in eastern Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or I.R.G.C.

“As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing,” Mr. Austin said. “No group will strike our troops with impunity.”

Attacks by Iranian proxies against bases housing U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Syria are increasing, U.S. officials say, and Washington has not responded with force since 2021.There were seven attacks in May, as many attacks that month as February, March and April combined, and there have been a total of 29 since October without a kinetic U.S. response.