February 5, 2024 - 7:00am
The inevitable has happened. After an Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) drone strike killed three US servicemen on 28 January, America struck back at the IRI’s patron, Iran.
On Saturday, the United States (along with the UK) hit targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and its proxy militias in Iraq and Syria. Beyond the obvious, the strikes were interesting in several regards. First, they were heavily telegraphed and done at 5pm local time to give the Iranians a chance to get their people out. They were also wide-ranging, targeting 85 facilities. The message was threefold: US deaths will not go unavenged; we can strike you with power and reach; and finally, we seek no escalation.
Iran claims 40 people died in the strikes, though this has not been independently verified. The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a state-backed umbrella organisation of armed groups, claimed the dead included 16 of its members — both fighters and medics. The Iraqi government earlier said civilians were also killed in the strike.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani also got involved. The attacks, he said, represented “another adventurous and strategic mistake by the United States that will result only in increased tension and instability”.
Since the beginning of the current Gaza war following the 7 October attacks, Iranian proxies from Iraq to Lebanon to Yemen have been attacking Israel and other Western targets across the region. On Saturday, Britain joined the United States in a third wave of retaliatory strikes against Tehran’s client groups. This time they were pitted against the Houthi terror group, which has been busy trying to strangle global shipping over the past few months. Reports are that fighter jets and ships were used to hit over 30 targets in ten locations. These included weapons storage facilities, missile systems, launchers and other capabilities, which gives a sense of just how potent Iran’s various proxies are.
More strikes will come. Washington cannot allow Iran’s various tentacles to kill its people without a response – and one that makes it utterly clear that Iran itself will pay a heavy price for murder. Seeking to de-escalate while striking your enemy may seem an unwise strategy, but the truth is that Washington has no choice. If it doesn’t respond, if it lets terror go unanswered, then that terror will only grow. And we cannot allow the Houthis to interrupt international commerce without paying a heavy economic price that we are simply in no position to afford.
But the more time rolls on, and the more that each hits the other, the greater the chance that escalation might come anyway. It’s not what anybody wants, but then mass wars rarely are.
David Patrikarakos is UnHerd‘s foreign correspondent. His latest book is War in 140 characters: how social media is reshaping conflict in the 21st century. (Hachette)
dpatrikarakos
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SubscribeDon’t panic HMS Prince of Wales is on her way.
That should sort ‘em out!
If somebody can find the jump leads to get it started…
Let’s wait and see. With the other carrier being withdrawn from the big NATO exercise in Norway at very short notice due to mechanical concerns, we will need to wait for a week for visual proof that Prince of Wales can set sail.
Is P.O.W. going to the Red Sea or Norway? Most online sources suggest the planned NATO exercise in March is taking priority. The reassuring thing about wargames is that the (blue) good guys always win so Norway seems like the preferable mission.
Can we all remember to refer to them as BAE & Babcock’s Aircraft Carriers please? Credit where it’s due. Likewise Lockheed Martin’s F-35s – the planes that won’t be taking off from them wherever they are because they’re cak too. Thanks in advance.
I thought the problem is that the F35 cannot land with a full load of weapons? Is taking off a new problem?
Prop ishoos. Will have to connect the mashing machines for auxiliary power.
Seems like it would have been a lot less effort to pressure Israel into a ceasefire and save us all the bother.
Chris, didn’t you read the article?! We have NO choices here. There are NO options but to escalate and spiral into a regional – if not a world – war.
So stop presenting ‘choices’ and ‘options’ (such as pressuring our regional ally to stop blowing up civilians). Read and accept the narrative here: we have NO choice but a massive, pointless war. Say it with me, Chris: we have NO choice here.
The word “narrative” is always a tell that we are dealing with a crackpot. Just because you believe in spells and incantations, doesn’t mean that other people do, much less that they work.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
-Inigo Montoya (1987)
The Princess Bride is 1973, not 1987.
@Aidan – do you have any better words or terms to describe a story as it has been presented to us that isn’t ‘narrative’? Thanks in advance.
Israel, that small island of civilisation, is worth the bother.
That beacon of civilisation that ordered their troops to open fire on vehicles knowing full well they could contain hostages precisely to stop them being taken to Gaza.
How civilised is this?
https://archive.ph/DqeYw
is there a reason Hamas cannot be pressured into cease fire? Oh, wait; Hamas rejected a call for one. Again. And it keeps whatever number of hostages are still alive.
How many Palestinians are in Israeli jails despite not having been tried for any crimes? It’s a much higher number than Israelis that have been taken by Hamas
So who’s going to be fighting who in this “mass war” Mr. Pilkington seems to see breaking out ? And why ?
There is always trouble in the Middle East. Yet the actual wars are very short (excepting the Iran-Iraq War) and were usually put out by the US and Russia before they got out of control.
The author needs to make a far stronger case for why “it’s different this time”. I’m just not seeing it.
Describing the killing of troops in a base specifically built to service another one a few miles away that had been constructed on illegally occupied land shows again how far the notion of ‘terror’ has been expanded these days.
“Washington cannot allow Iran’s various tentacles to kill its people without a response – and one that makes it utterly clear that Iran itself will pay a heavy price for murder.” Highly telegraphed strikes hardly send a message that a heavy price will be paid. Iran and the U.S. have been spatting for about 50 years and will most likely do so for another 50 unless at some point Iran decides to nuke Israel from the face of the earth.
Who again is paying a heavy economic price? Is it the US, whose shipping doesn’t go through the Red Sea? If not, why are US taxpayers footing the bill? The rest of the world can take the long way round or build their own damn navy.