This op-ed was published by The National on January 29, 2024
The stakes have once again risen for US President Joe Biden’s high-wire balancing act in the Middle East, as three US military personnel were killed and dozens wounded by a drone attack in Jordan that the White House has blamed on Iranian-backed radical groups.
The killings have transformed the third flashpoint in the region, repeated attacks on US troops and facilities in the Middle East, from the least to the most alarming minefield. It now outstrips – at least, for Americans – daily violence on the Israel-Lebanon border and Houthi piracy in the Red Sea. Responding to the attack with firmness, yet also without intensifying a drift towards regional conflict, will be the most challenging spill-over yet of the October 7 crisis for the Biden administration.
The devastating strike hit Tower 22, a US logistics support base, and some claim signals intelligence facility, in a remote part of north-eastern Jordan near the Syrian border. Several Iranian-backed groups operate in the area, both in Syria and Iraq. Their fighters have reportedly been evacuating their bases in expectation of a significant US retaliation. That is extremely likely, although Washington is going to have to carefully weigh how to balance going far enough to restore deterrence but not too far for its own purposes.
The Biden administration’s key goal since the Hamas-Israel war began has been to prevent the conflict from spreading dramatically beyond Gaza. After a tense first month, the policy had appeared to be succeeding, and Washington began turning more attention to restraining Israel inside Gaza itself and preparing for a “day-after” scenario there.
However, in recent weeks, tensions rose dangerously in the Red Sea and on the Lebanon-Israel border. The US has already been drawn into a limited but serious conflict with the Houthis, after the radical Yemeni group began attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea. And Israel persists in demanding submission to its ultimatum that Hezbollah withdraw its elite Radwan Force fighters from the south, as far north as the Litani River – a demand Hezbollah has dismissed as totally unreasonable.
Amid these growing threats of escalation, however, the Biden administration had reason to hope that its policy of conflict containment remained viable and even relatively successful. The battle against Houthi piracy could drag on at a low-level for months or even years without degenerating into all-out warfare, as the battle against Somali pirates did between 2000-2017. And both Israel on the one hand and, especially, Hezbollah and Iran on the other have every reason to want to avoid another major war with each other at this stage – which is probably why one has not broken out over the past four months.
Attention had been mainly focused on those two crises, almost to the exclusion of handwringing over an ongoing, and almost daily, set of attacks against US forces and facilities in Syria and Iraq by less potent members of Tehran’s “axis of resistance” network of militia groups. Saturday’s deadly strike against Tower 22 serves as a stark reminder that this third flashpoint always remained potentially the most dangerous for the US, because these attacks were aimed directly at the US presence in the region and at Americans.
Until now, US anti-rocket and missile defences, which were beefed up before Israel’s major offensive into the Gaza Strip, managed to successfully intercept and thwart these attacks. The Pentagon is unlikely to have underestimated the potential for a deadly outcome, but the civilian administration in Washington may have been lulled into a false sense of security and was certainly hit by extremely bad luck as well as a vicious attack on Saturday. It’s also entirely possible that the militia groups responsible are taken aback by their own “good luck”, and the extent of death and destruction they were able to visit upon US forces.
It may have gone too far, as well, for their Iranian backers, who will be in a key position now to help to determine whether any or all of these three smoldering fuses detonate a regional explosion that could engulf all major parties. That certainly won’t suit Tehran’s interests, especially under current circumstances, as Iran is quietly inching towards irreversible nuclear status while the world’s attention is focused on many other Middle Eastern priorities.
Iran has clearly been doing nothing to prompt Hezbollah into a larger conflict with Israel that could cascade eventually into a confrontation between Tehran and Washington, conceivably even producing the US military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities that Israel has long sought but never achieved. This might help to explain the enthusiasm of some Israeli leaders for a “pre-emptive” attack against Hezbollah, and their appetite for a growing list of totally unconvincing pretexts for new levels of bellicosity.
By contrast, Iran has almost certainly relished Houthi piracy in the Red Sea, as it repeats long-standing Iranian messages about the right of Tehran and its regional allies to be included in any de-facto maritime security arrangements and that if Iran cannot freely export its oil due to sanctions, no one else can be assured of buying and selling anything unmolested either. But, with a series of US and UK military strikes inside Yemen, Tehran may begin acting as a restraining force on the Houthis as well, because, having made their point, the last thing Iran needs is for Yemeni militants to drag the region into uncontrolled conflict.
Iran will also have to be cognisant that Republicans in Congress and the party’s likely presidential nominee, former president Donald Trump, will loudly blame the Biden administration for the growing crisis and attacks on Americans, pressuring Mr Biden into tougher responses. The attack in Jordan also brings Iran and its network into direct conflict with yet another US partner in the Middle East.
So, restraint is not going to only be up to the US. Iran must move quickly to get a grip on its regional network of armed gangs, or, eventually, face the wrath of the most potent possible enemy with powerful regional partners. If it’s still the case that none of the main actors want a broader regional war that would be devastating to them all, then careful deliberation and relative forbearance becomes a shared responsibility. Otherwise, one, two, or even all three of these smoldering fuses will sooner or later explode with devastating consequences.