{"id":15054,"date":"2024-02-03T12:47:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T12:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/03\/analysis-what-to-make-of-the-us-retaliation-strikes-against-pro-iranian-militias-in-iraq-and-syria\/"},"modified":"2024-02-03T12:47:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-03T12:47:00","slug":"analysis-what-to-make-of-the-us-retaliation-strikes-against-pro-iranian-militias-in-iraq-and-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/03\/analysis-what-to-make-of-the-us-retaliation-strikes-against-pro-iranian-militias-in-iraq-and-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: What to make of the US retaliation strikes against pro-Iranian\u00a0militias\u00a0in Iraq and Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

It was meant to sound devastating,\u00a0and likely\u00a0felt\u00a0so to the pro-Iranian militias on the receiving end. But Friday night\u2019s airstrikes against over 80 targets inside Iraq and Syria\u00a0were\u00a0\u2014\u00a0so far\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a comparatively limited response to the worst loss of US military life in the region\u00a0in\u00a0nearly three years. <\/p>\n

Friday night tried to sound loud,\u00a0but will likely not echo for\u00a0long.\u00a0US Central Command\u00a0said the US deployed heavy bombers\u00a0\u2014\u00a0the\u00a0B-1B\u00a0Lancer\u00a0\u2014\u00a0to hit 85 targets in seven locations.\u00a0The strikes\u00a0may be determined to have caused more damage when the sun rises. But it was far from the most pain the Pentagon was capable of delivering. <\/p>\n

There might be more;\u00a0US Secretary of Defense\u00a0Lloyd Austin suggested this was the beginning. But on Friday, the US response lasted just 30 minutes, the White House said. It was short, perhaps sharp, but not a shock. <\/p>\n

That was a clear and calculated choice. The Biden administration faced a near-impossible task: Hit hard enough to show you mean it, but also ensure your opponent can absorb the blow without lashing out in return. The US\u00a0had\u00a0telegraphed\u00a0its\u00a0response\u00a0for over five days,\u00a0with\u00a0senior US officials briefing about its nature, its severity, and even hinting at its targets. <\/p>\n

This warning was likely designed to reduce the risk of misunderstanding,\u00a0and perhaps enable the militias targeted to shift locations, and lessen the loss of life. It may have also been intended to ensure US strikes were not mistaken\u00a0for\u00a0the work of Israel,\u00a0which could have\u00a0sparked\u00a0retaliation against the Israelis\u00a0and\u00a0risked\u00a0another cycle of escalation. <\/p>\n

This volatility reduced Biden\u2019s options to a sliver of US capabilities. When his predecessor\u00a0Donald Trump had\u00a0Iran\u2019s most senior military figure,\u00a0Quds Force Commander\u00a0Qasem\u00a0Soleimani,\u00a0killed\u00a0in\u00a02020,\u00a0the\u00a0region\u00a0was far\u00a0from\u00a0the brink.\u00a0But the\u00a0risk of conflagration in 2024 is the highest it has been\u00a0in\u00a0decades. Mistakes, or unanticipated successes, can lead to spirals, and that can lead to unavoidable, wider conflict. <\/p>\n

It\u00a0is almost miraculous\u00a0that wider conflict has not already erupted in the Middle East four\u00a0months\u00a0after\u00a0Palestinian militant group\u00a0Hamas\u2019 attack on Israel, and the\u00a0ongoing\u00a0assault on Gaza it sparked. (Indeed, you might be left asking, if recent months have not been enough for the Palestinians\u2019 prima facie allies to intervene, what would be?) Yet as of Friday, despite a continuing slow boil of tensions between the US, its allies, and Iran\u2019s many proxies, a wider war still remains unlikely. <\/p>\n

Wars normally happen in the rare event that both sides want them, or\u00a0in\u00a0the more common occasion when\u00a0parties\u00a0determine\u00a0open conflict\u00a0is\u00a0unavoidable, or sometimes when they have run out of diplomatic space. Or they stumble into them through a wild spiral of escalation. <\/p>\n

Neither\u00a0Iran\u00a0nor\u00a0the United States want a war. The Biden administration has elections looming, in which it does not need another costly foreign adventure, trouble over its Israel policy, or rising oil prices. Iran\u2019s economy is still shaky, internal unrest is a not-yet distant memory, and\u00a0it has\u00a0wider goals of outsized regional influence, milking its technical relationship with Moscow, and the apparent pacy pursuit of a nuclear weapon. <\/p>\n

It is\u00a0for\u00a0this crisis \u2014 seldom spoken of, but loud in the background noise \u2014 that perhaps Tehran and Washington are happy to save their direct confrontation. Since October 7, Iran increased its enrichment of uranium to over 83%, bolstering fears it was closing in on the\u00a0nuclear bomb\u00a0capability\u00a0it insists it does not want. <\/p>\n

The UN watchdog\u00a0International Atomic Energy Agency\u00a0has suggested that\u00a0Iranian uranium\u00a0enrichment may have slowed in recent weeks, but the prospect of nuclear proliferation is again closer. In the meantime, Washington is happy to leave this looming crisis off its talking points. And Tehran is content with needling its main adversaries, fixing its internal woes, and avoiding broader conflict. <\/p>\n

There will likely follow criticism of the Biden administration for not using the same blunt and forceful approach of\u00a0Trump in\u00a02020. Yet the perception that might is the only means of projecting strength is dangerous. The US can inflict a lot of damage, anywhere it seeks, at any time. Biden\u2019s decision\u00a0so far\u00a0to not send many other Americans to die in a wider conflict, in the name of avenging the deaths of three of their comrades, is not weakness, but the recognition that power is defined by its measured use. His critics would do well to remember that Trump\u2019s bold killing of Soleimani did not stop us getting to this point. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was meant to sound devastating,\u00a0and likely\u00a0felt\u00a0so to the pro-Iranian militias on the receiving end. But Friday night\u2019s airstrikes against over 80 targets inside Iraq and Syria\u00a0were\u00a0\u2014\u00a0so far\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a comparatively limited response to the worst loss of US military life in the region\u00a0in\u00a0nearly three years. Friday night tried to sound loud,\u00a0but will likely not echo for\u00a0long.\u00a0US <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":15055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}