Three American service members were injured, one critically, after a drone attack launched in Iraq by the Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah. Joe Biden ordered an immediate retaliatory airstrike that hit three facilities operated by Kataib Hezbollah and "affiliated groups."
Biden was very careful to target only drone facilities and none of the supply depots or command centers used by the terrorists. That would be unfair and an "escalation."
“The President places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm’s way,” National Security Council spokeswoman, Adrienne Watson said. “The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue.”
If Biden really cared about "the protection of American personnel serving in harm’s way," he would blow Kataib Hezbollah and the other militia groups who attack our troops with impunity to kingdom come.
Meanwhile, Israel felt no such qualms about killing the enemy. The IAF attacked a bunker on the outskirts of Damascus, killing a high-ranking Iranian general who was a close friend of the not-dearly departed General Qassem Soleimani, the former head of Iran’s elite Quds Force and a killer of more American troops than any other individual Iranian.
The U.S. has also blamed Iran, which has funded and trained Hamas, for attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militants against commercial and military vessels through a critical shipping choke point in the Red Sea.
The Biden administration has sought to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a wider regional conflict that either opens up new fronts of Israeli fighting or draws America in directly.
The administration’s measured response — where not every attempt on American troops has been met with a counterattack — has drawn criticism from Republicans.
How do you suppose Iran sees America's response? Do they see it as "measured"? More likely, they see it as weak and confused. That's why their militias continue to hit American targets as if they were ducks lined up in a shooting gallery.
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Biden may not want to escalate the conflict. Begging your pardon, Mr. President, but you're a little late for that. Iran and its allies in the Middle East, including the Houthis in Yemen, militias in Iraq, and other affiliated terror groups in Lebanon and Syria, have already escalated the war.
The big question we have to ask Biden is whether the president's forbearance in not blowing the militias out of existence is accomplishing anything except making America look weak and indecisive.
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