The Costs of Biden's Backing for the War in Gaza Keep Increasing

Backing the war in Gaza has exposed U.S. forces in the region to much greater risk for the sake of enabling slaughter and mass starvation.

Three U.S. servicemen were killed and dozens others were injured by a drone attack on their base in Jordan today. This latest attack is one of more than 160 launched since October 7 by local militias in Iraq and Syria at bases where U.S. forces are stationed. The war in Gaza and the Biden administration’s unconditional backing for the war have led to this terrible, predictable outcome. The costs of Biden’s backing for the war keep increasing.

Iraqi militias claimed responsibility for the attack:

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group for Iran-linked militias including Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to a senior official with the organization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with rules set by the group.

“If the U.S. keeps supporting Israel, there will be escalations,” the Islamic Resistance in Iraq official said. “All U.S. interests in the region are legitimate targets and we don’t care about U.S. threats to respond. … Martyrdom is our prize.”

U.S. forces had already been coming under fire in Iraq and Syria for years since U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal. It was just a matter of time before there were fatalities from attacks like this one. The U.S. has kept troops in Iraq in the face of substantial local political opposition, and the assassination strike in Baghdad earlier this month has put additional pressure on the Iraqi government to get our troops out. The base targeted in the attack may have been in Jordan, but it seems clear enough that it was struck because of the ongoing conflict with Iraqi militias that has continued and worsened since the 2020 assassination of Soleimani and an Iraqi militia leader.

The war in Gaza has supercharged all of these preexisting tensions. Backing the war in Gaza has exposed U.S. forces in the region to much greater risk for the sake of enabling slaughter and mass starvation. The case for halting all support for the war and pressing for a ceasefire was overwhelming before today’s attack, and now it is even stronger.

The U.S. ought to be withdrawing its troops from Iraq and Syria as quickly as possible, and it should end its support for the war in Gaza at once. I know that this administration won’t even entertain the latter option, and I have no confidence in the president’s judgment to navigate this latest crisis. If the response to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea is any indication, we can expect that Biden will once again choose to escalate rather than think through why U.S. forces in the region are in greater danger now than they were four months ago.

There are already demands from the usual suspects for retaliation, including striking directly at Iran, but these demands are just as ill-considered and reckless as ever. The U.S. has repeatedly struck back at militias in Iraq and Syria in response to drone and missile attacks on American forces, but it has done nothing to end the back and forth. Another round of strikes to “restore deterrence” will achieve nothing except to take the U.S. closer to the larger war that the administration keeps claiming it doesn’t want. Striking at Iranian targets directly is a good way to kick off a regional conflagration, and it is practically guaranteed to expose U.S. forces all across the region to reprisals.

If Biden wants to get the U.S. deeper into a multi-front war, he will follow the Blob’s playbook of shooting first and thinking never. If the president wants to avoid further loss of life, he will quickly change course on Gaza, Yemen, and the useless deployments in Iraq and Syria. The need for the U.S. to extricate itself from the Middle East has rarely been more obvious than it is now.