NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE {O} n Wednesday night, two American F-15 fighter jets executed a strike on targets inside Syria that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said had been used by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force affiliates. The attacks were, he added, “a response to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria,” but the strikes also occurred just hours after the Pentagon confirmed that the Houthi militia group operating in Yemen had shot down a $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone.
This latest round of strikes on Iran-backed targets inside Syria follows President Joe Biden’s October 26 decision to approve an aerial attack on Syrian targets linked to the IRGC “and other affiliated groups.” That attack was a belated response to the dozens of attacks on U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria by Iran-backed Shiite militia groups, some of which the Pentagon admitted had produced U.S. casualties. “Iran wants to hide its hand and deny its role in these attacks against our forces,” Austin said. “If attacks by Iran’s proxies against U.S. forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people.”
Since the 10/7 massacre in Israel, there have been at least 41 Iran-backed drone and rocket attacks on American positions, and no fewer than 45 U.S. service personnel have been injured in those attacks — “more than twice as many as the Pentagon previously disclosed,” according to NBC News. Every indication suggests that the attacks on Western assets by Iranian proxy forces will continue apace, notwithstanding the Biden administration’s belated Syria strikes.
“We are concerned about all elements of Iran’s threat network increasing their attacks in a way that risks miscalculation or tipping the region into war,” one defense official said at the end of last month. Indeed, the calibrated response America has only reluctantly approved is unlikely to alter Iran’s calculations. Because the pattern we’re witnessing so closely mirrors the escalatory conduct in which Iran engaged in 2019, we’re unlikely to see a disruption of that pattern unless the U.S. executes a spectacular crescendo like the one that put an end to the cycle of provocations back then.
By the summer of 2019, Iran was emboldened. In May of that year, the Trump administration had dispatched a U.S. carrier group, B-52 bombers, Patriot anti-missile batteries, and amphibious landing craft to the region to deter Iran from executing what intelligence indicated was an advanced plan for strikes on U.S.-aligned targets. It didn’t work. On May 12, Iranian assets attacked two Saudi oil tankers off the coast of the Persian Gulf — sophisticated operations involving underwater demolition units and fast boats. The following month, Iran proudly announced that it had shot down a $120 million American aerial-surveillance vehicle, but Trump refused to respond. “I find it hard to believe if it was intentional,” he said of the attack for which Iran claimed credit. Trump blinked, and Iran grew bolder.
In September, Iran executed a brazen series of strikes on two Saudi Arabian petroleum-processing facilities. Again, America’s only visible response to this assault on geopolitical stability was to release an unspecified amount from its strategic petroleum reserves to stabilize the global energy market. Iran-aligned militias spent the final two months of 2019 raining rockets down on U.S. positions in Iraq, one of which killed a U.S. defense contractor and wounded three American service personnel. By this point, the Trump administration had finally had enough. On December 30, U.S. forces executed a strike on Shiite militia groups in Iraq that, according to the Pentagon, resulted in at least 25 fatalities. But Iran remained undeterred.
On December 31, the Islamic Republic orchestrated an assault on the American embassy in Baghdad. A mob of well-organized attackers breached the walls of the compound. Armed with what U.S. special agents believe was specific intelligence on targets inside the facility, the attackers laid siege to the compound — forcing U.S. personnel to retreat to secure areas within the facility and threatening the American diplomatic presence in Iraq. Something dramatic had to be done to alter Tehran’s calculations and restore America’s capacity to control the tempo of events.
And so, Trump approved the strike that neutralized IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani. Iran responded by lobbing ballistic missiles at Iraqi targets, but the Pentagon deemed that response proportional and de-escalatory. The Trump administration unilaterally declared deterrence to have been restored, and the cycle of escalation ended.
It’s hard to imagine that a similar option is available to the Biden administration today. The security environment in the Middle East is radically different from what it was in late 2019. Iranian proxy forces from Gaza to Lebanon and Syria to the Arabian Peninsula are active and engaging both their Israeli and American adversaries. An Israeli campaign that successfully defangs the Iran-backed Hamas would be a dramatic event likely sufficient to compel Tehran to rethink its region-wide campaign of violence. But even if that operation is successful, the dissolution of Hamas will still be a long way off. In the meantime, we will continue to climb the escalatory ladder. And who knows where that journey will end?