An American military base in northern Syria (Getty)

Washington -

The killing of 3 American soldiers, yesterday, Sunday, at a military base in Jordan, raised the total American military losses in the region since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7 to five people, as the US Navy had previously lost two soldiers during an operation to seize smuggled weapons. To Yemen.

The attack on the American base in northeastern Jordan highlighted the failure of the American goal to prevent the geographical scope of the war on Gaza from expanding.

Since October 7, the administration of President Joe Biden has emphasized doing everything in its power to prevent the expansion of the scope of the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip. To do this, Biden sent the "Gerald Ford" and "Dwight Eisenhower" aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean, in addition to deploying More than 20 naval vessels, and strengthening air force squadrons in the Middle East, with the aim of deterring any parties thinking of interfering.

However, the increase in the American military presence in the region did not contribute to increasing the stability of the region away from the Gaza Strip arena. On the contrary, it contributed to increasing tension, especially after the Houthi group that rules parts of Yemen decided to obstruct maritime navigation heading to Israel until the aggression against Gaza was stopped. . This prompted American military intervention and the recent launching of air attacks on Houthi military targets inside Yemen.

Not the first attack

Iraqi factions calling themselves the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” an alliance of Iranian-backed armed groups, claimed responsibility for the attack; It wasn't surprising. The factions described the attack as retaliation for the American military presence in the region and for the number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza. More than 25 thousand people have been martyred so far.

It is worth noting that American bases inside Iraq and Syria have been subjected to more than 151 attacks since last October 19, and Washington did not respond with counterattacks to all of these attacks. Washington argued that its response was a message of “unwillingness to escalate.”

A number of experts who Al Jazeera Net spoke to believe that there is a silent understanding and awareness of the red lines between Washington and Tehran (and its affiliated armed groups) in the arena of confrontation between them in Iraq and Syria.

The real reason behind the attack inside Jordan specifically is not yet known, an attack that President Biden, in an election year, does not have the luxury of ignoring or not responding to militarily.

Adam Weinstein, deputy director of the Middle East Program at the Quincy Institute in Washington, believes that it has always been clear that the presence of scattered American forces in Iraq and Syria poses a risk of dragging the United States into a larger conflict in such an unpredictable region.

He added in an interview with Al Jazeera Net, "For this reason, I have always advocated rethinking the American military position in Iraq, since I called for exploring how Washington could conduct a gradual withdrawal of forces and reassess the goals of this presence, especially with the increasing risks of provoking a broader conflict, whether intentionally or Unintentionally".

The American Tower 22 base in Jordan was attacked by a drone (Al Jazeera)

Surprising the attack site

For his part, David De Roche, a former Pentagon official and lecturer at the National Defense College in Washington, expressed to Al Jazeera Net his surprise that the attack occurred inside Jordanian territory. Des Roches said it was very likely that the drone that attacked forces in Jordan was directed at a target in Syria and missed.

He added: "Given that Iran prefers to operate through a network of proxies that do not generally restrict their activities, it should not surprise us that they would attack American forces in a previously neutral country."

He considered, "The only thing that did not surprise me was that Iranian agents were finally able to kill Americans. American forces in Iraq and Syria have been attacked more than 170 times by Iranian agents in the past few months, and it was inevitable that they would be lucky and penetrate American defenses sooner or later." ".

For his part, in an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Charles Dunn, a former official at the White House and the US State Department, and currently an expert at the Arab Institute in Washington, said, “The attack is somewhat surprising, given that Jordan has not yet been the subject of attacks by militias allied with Iran.” "In Syria or Iraq. This latest attack expands the circle of countries directly affected by or participating in the fighting and deepens the risk of a broader conflict, with the United States directly implicated on multiple fronts."

Two ways to respond

Des Roches indicated that the Biden administration must respond strongly to this attack, and he told Al Jazeera Net: “Biden has two ways to do this. The first is by expanding their list of targets in Syria. In the past, the vast majority of American retaliatory strikes were directed against buildings or weapons depots. “I believe the list of targets may now expand to include militia leadership, and perhaps members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who provide the militias with weapons, intelligence, training, and operational guidance.”

The second way, according to the American military expert, is to escalate horizontally, that is, directing attacks against Iranian forces and their agents outside Iraq and Syria. This could include Iranian intelligence ships operating in the Arabian Sea.

Regarding the nature of Biden’s response, former White House official Charles Dunn said: “I expect the administration, which blamed the attack on Iranian-backed militias operating from Syria or Iraq, to ​​respond quickly and directly with strikes against militia targets and even Iranian facilities in the two countries.” ".

Former President Donald Trump argued that President Biden's "weakness and surrender" was responsible for the deadly drone attack in Jordan that killed 3 US military personnel.

Trump said in a post on his website, Truth Social: “This attack would never have happened if I were president, just as the Iranian-backed Hamas attack on Israel would never have happened, and the war in Ukraine would never have happened, and we would have peace by now.” "All over the world. Instead, we are on the brink of World War III."

Source: Al Jazeera