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submitted 9 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The killing of three U.S. troops and wounding of dozens more on Sunday by Iran-backed militants is piling political pressure on President Joe Biden to deal a blow directly against Iran, a move he's been reluctant to do out of fear of igniting a broader war.

Biden's response options could range anywhere from targeting Iranian forces outside to even inside Iran, or opting for a more cautious retaliatory attack solely against the Iran-backed militants responsible, experts say.

American forces in the Middle East have been attacked more than 150 times by Iran-backed forces in Iraq, Syria, Jordan and off the coast of Yemen since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October.

But until Sunday's attack on a remote outpost known as Tower 22 near Jordan's northeastern border with Syria, the strikes had not killed U.S. troops nor wounded so many. That allowed Biden the political space to mete out U.S. retaliation, inflicting costs on Iran-backed forces without risking a direct war with Tehran.

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[-] bluGill@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

Nobody knows how to stop terrorism. There are a lot of hypothesis. However they are either untested in the real world, or they have failed.

[-] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 5 points 9 months ago

You need to solve the underlying conflicts?

[-] bluGill@kbin.social 3 points 9 months ago

That is one hypothesis. While it sounds reasonable, we don't actually know if it would work. We also have no clue how to solve the underlying conflicts. (Other than simplistic things like turning the entire middle east to glass - killing many innocent people in the process).

[-] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 7 points 9 months ago

we don’t actually know if it would work.

We could try, because we know that the alternatives don't work for sure.

We also have no clue how to solve the underlying conflicts.

I would say that the bigger problem is that people in power don't actually want to solve the conflicts at all.

[-] bluGill@kbin.social -2 points 9 months ago

Try which? I've seen many ideas, we cannot try them all. Some of the ideas have been tried as well, but the proposers don't have enough history to know that or the results. Most of them will take decades to implement. This isn't an easy problem.

[-] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 4 points 9 months ago

Try no to kill thousands of civilians in response.

[-] bluGill@kbin.social -2 points 9 months ago

Do you also include civilians who are killed by someone else if we don't take action? While "we" can do better about killing civilians, whoever "we" is, there is a "someone else" who will kill civilians as well - maybe a different group of civilians, but they will themselves do some killing.

[-] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 4 points 9 months ago

I'm talking about disproportional response to terrorism - I thought it was pretty clear.

this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
101 points (83.4% liked)

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