For the third time in as many weeks, American assets conducted precision strikes on Iran-backed terrorist proxies in what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has deemed a “response to continued attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria.” But unlike the last two rounds of airstrikes, U.S. officials could quickly assess that the strikes President Biden undertook last night produced casualties.

The tempo of events in the Middle East contributes to the impression that the United States has been thrust into a regional shooting war.

Since the 10/7 massacre, in which an Iranian proxy militia targeted Israeli civilians with mass death and torture, other Iran-aligned groups have executed at least 41 attacks on positions maintained by U.S. ground forces in Iraq and Syria. No fewer than 56 U.S. service personnel have reportedly been wounded in those attacks. The U.S. has responded to those attacks with kinetic force — a response that has now produced reciprocal casualties on the other side. U.S. air assets are pounding Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps positions in Syria, and U.S. naval assets are intercepting missiles fired toward Israel from an Iran-backed militia in control of territory in Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula.

What else do you call this sort of thing?