A Proportional Response
It’s what we do. I mean this is what we do.
WaPo (“U.S. launches retaliatory strikes after deadly attack on Jordan base“):
U.S. forces launched a broad attack against Iran’s powerful military wing and affiliated militias in Iraq and Syria on Friday, delivering a blow to armed groups that Washington has blamed for killing American troops in Jordan and a surge of violence across the Middle East.
U.S. Central Command said that American forces, using B-1 bombers flown from the United States and other aircraft, hit more than 85 targets affiliated with the Quds Force, a unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC), and local militias that it supports. Among the locations hit at four sites in Syria and three sites in Iraq were command and control posts, intelligence centers and drone storage facilities, officials said.
The operation marked the opening of what officials say will be a multiday campaign aimed at various targets close to Iran, which the Biden administration has blamed for the spiraling bloodshed that has erupted since the start of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, including a drone attack Sunday that killed three U.S. service members and injured dozens more at a remote outpost in Jordan.
“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” President Biden, who oversaw the repatriation of the slain soldiers’ remains earlier on Friday, said in a statement. “Let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.”
The moment marks an intensification in Washington’s long-running standoff with Tehran, which Biden administration has labeled responsible for scores of recent attacks in Iraq and Syria — where U.S. troops remain as part of a mission to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State — and in Yemen, where Houthi militants have fired on ships off the Arabian peninsula.
The strikes, which began at 4 p.m. Washington time on Friday, are an attempt to inflict greater damage on Iran and its proxies than they suffered in previous retaliatory actions carried out by U.S. forces in recent months, which thus far have failed to end the violence.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group that includes several militias affiliated with Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack on Tower 22, the American base close to Jordan’s shared border with Iraq and Syria. The slain troops, two women and a man, were part of an Army Reserve unit based in Georgia.
On Friday, Syria’s state-run media reported that “U.S. aggression” resulted in fatalities and injuries in multiple sites in desert areas. State TV said that a strike on a power station resulted in a partial power disruption in Syria’s Deir al-Zour governate.
A provincial official from western Iraq said that multiple houses used by militiamen as weapons depots in al-Qaim, a city along the border with Syria, were “entirely destroyed” by airstrikes on Friday. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation, reported at least two civilian deaths in al-Qaim.
While U.S. officials stressed that they hoped to avoid a wider conflict in planning their response, the action had the effect of stoking already-heightened tensions with at least one important American partner.
Yahya Rasool, an Iraqi military spokesman, described the U.S. strikes on al-Qaim and other border areas as a violation of his country’s sovereignty, which he said would “undermine the efforts of the Iraqi government, and pose a threat that could lead Iraq and the region to dire consequences.
We’ve been discussing the seeming inevitability of the fallout over Gaza leading to a wider war in the Middle East for weeks now. When Iranian proxies killed three American soldiers, an American military response was not only predictable but predicted. Indeed, we held a press conference warning that it was coming before launching.
I’m once again reminded of one of my favorite plotlines from the television show The West Wing, Season 1, Episode 3’s “A Proportional Response.”
This response is woefully unsatisfying. It doesn’t exact much vengeance for the killing of three Americans, nor even do much to discourage more such killing. It won’t do much to hamper the ability of Iranian proxies to harm American interests even in the short term. It almost certainly won’t change Iranian decision-making going forward because, as the fictional President Bartlett rightly notes, an American response of this sort was already factored in as a cost of doing business.
And, yet, as the fictional Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Fitzwallace correctly responds, this is all there is. A satisfying response would kill a lot of innocent people and almost certainly escalate the situation well beyond where either the United States or Iran wants.
So the tiresome game of tit for tat continues.
And it’s better than invading Afghanistan.
I just disagree with this way of dealing with things. A guy punches you in the nose, you do your best to send him to the hospital. Do you really want to get Capone?. It’s the Chicago way, and it’s the criminal justice way – hit a guy, the cops don’t just hold you so he can hit you back, you go to jail. And when you’re in jail, the rule holds – guy steals your apple you stab him with a fork, and beat him down. All this proportionality does is establish a price the enemy can calculate and decide to pay. The object should not be to play the game, but to end the game.
I know you love this analogy but I dont think it holds. If a guy hits you then you know exactly where he is and you can hit him until he is actually incapable of responding. With an asymmetrical fight with para-militaries you dont where they all are. People watch too much TV and think our military is omniscient. Its not. (Actually, they seem to veer between the military being idiots and omniscient.) Anyway, beyond not knowing where they all live they arent all necessarily proxies for Iran. There are other terror groups not affiliated with Iran who regard our soldiers as targets who will be happy to kill us for our support of Israel.
When fighting a group of religion driven killers it’s simply not predictable that an overwhelming attack will lead to their stopping. It might, or it might lead to a 20 year war. We dont really need another of those. Some people like to point to the bombing in Libya that seemed to deter Qaddafi but I don’t think many would see his terrorism as especially religious based. So right now, we have a few US deaths and some more wounded. We can escalate which will mean more US deaths but wouldn’t really change much. For that we would need to go to war. Spend a few trillion more dollars, lose thousands of more soldiers, disrupt the world oil supply and what happens after we leave? Besides which how will that really affect those para-militaries? It’s not like Iran is the only place in the world making weapons. Their motivation for attacking our troops wont decrease.
Proportional response is probably the least bad option. Of course we can decide to make the proportion a bit larger on our side. Maybe they escalate again and maybe we do also and maybe we end up at war anyway, but if we can avoid it losing so many lives while not achieving much seems worthwhile.
Steve
@Michael Reynolds:
“And when you’re in jail, the rule holds – guy steals your apple you stab him with a fork, and beat him down. ”
My experience in The State Home For Wayward Boys differed significantly. When someone caused a problem, you ended them (or they moved into protective custody with the snitches and child molesters). This is why I fit in with the lifers.
As previously discussed here, that this is why you don’t put Luddite in charge. While I understand that a pyramid of my enemies’ skulls is not humanly acceptable, my history proves that I have no actual problem with that solution
@steve:
“Sleepy Joe’s” measured solution, while imperfect, is better by far than mine.
I fear when all is said and done, a military response is as more about domestic politics than anything else. And given the alternative to Biden’s reelection, I don’t particularly object.
“It doesn’t exact much vengeance for the killing of three Americans,….”
This sort of thinking is just plain weird. Vengeance is not the goal, cessation of hostile actions towards us is.
And then the pitiful observation: “as the fictional President Bartlett rightly notes, an American response of this sort was already factored in as a cost of doing business.”
No. “Proportionate” (or in the case of the Biden Admin; the expectation of a good solid (blxx) job) is what was factored in. A disproportionate response is what is required. That’s what Iran understands. Houthis or other proxies are a dime a dozen sacrificial lambs to Iran. And there are plenty of Iranian assets outside of Iran proper that could send the message, avoiding the specter of intrusion into Iran, and make them think “what’s next?”
Its this limp dicced policy response that results in mischief and the endless tit-for-tat. And spare us the loss of life argument. The chronic nature of the tit-for-tat ultimately results in greater loss of life, disproportionately American.
You know, if we could find “the guy” who carried out these actions, it would make sense to drop an anvil on his head. Or even send in two helicopters worth of commandos at zero-dark thirty to kill him, take a bunch of intel, and bury him at sea.
We can’t. We don’t know where “the guy” is, or maybe even who he is. (In the radical Muslim world, there’s no chance it’s a she). We can drop a lot of bombs and kill a lot of people, so that we look scary, but that doesn’t work either ethically, politically, or strategically.
We want to drive a wedge between the radicals and the everyday citizens. Killing lots of people who bear little or no responsibility for what happened to us will not make our life easier, not unless we are willing to engage in genocide.
And by the way, this is where genocide comes from, I think. It’s actually kind of normative for humans to be like this. The “proportional response” is much harder for a human being to do. See the above discussion.
@Michael Reynolds: Do you want a war in the Middle East? Because that’s how you get a war in the Middle East. That was the response after 9/11, and we then had a 20 year war.
We never seem to calculate the price before putting our troops in harm’s way. We act like they appeared suddenly, fully formed, innocent of all crimes and history, just in time for someone to decide to attack them. Every time we are horrified that our sweet, innocent, tender young soldiers.
We are playing against someone who would like to drag us into decades of war.
LOLing at the warmongering, bloodthirsty comments section chickenhawks. As predictable as they are amoral and wrong. Netanyahu-level reactionary stupidity, and makes me yet again thankful Biden is president. Had we gotten just about anyone else with his demographic profile, we’d be in serious trouble.
Wish the old man could stay in office till he’s 99. But of course, it’s always the wrong guy who wants to be dictator on day one, never the Washingtons or the Bidens.
@Jay L Gischer:
Louder, for the chest-pounding losers in the back.
@steve:
I understand your position, and I am not going to push back too hard on it, because obviously circumstances change, conditions change, long-term goals have to come into play. But this shit with Iran has been going on a long time now, decades, through eight presidents. It’s honestly not very costly in terms of lives, but it’s damn costly in terms of the need to have bases and carrier battle groups in position, and just the sheer cost of munitions.
If the goal is to stop the game, our policy is not working. Clearly. My preferred goal would be to end the game. I understand that fanatics may not make rational calculations of risk and reward, but so far Iran has in fact limited its provocations. Which suggests they can add and subtract. You are of course correct that we can’t predict anything with certainty, except that we can predict more of the same, indefinitely.
I have a ceiling light fixture in my bathroom. It takes a hard-to-find and all-but-impossible to remove and replace, bulb, and an awkward shade. I could deal with it by climbing my ladder and cursing at it as I try not to end up with glass in my fingers, or I could do what I did: replace the entire fixture. Higher up-front cost, but no hassle going forward. I prefer to solve rather than manage.
It doesn’t take boots on the ground. We can hit every spot on planet earth. Kill an Ayatollah today and yes, another will take his place. Do it three more times? I suspect Ayatollah #4 will reconsider his approach.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Just to clarify, I have not at any time stabbed anyone with a fork. My brief week and a half stay in jail was uneventful, which I ascribe to a couple things: I don’t fit an easily-definable type. Bullies, like sharks, want to know what sort of creature you are before they try to take a bite out of you. Being big helps. And my bail was ludicrously high (a quarter million in 2024 dollars) so no one believed I was just a humble burglar.
What were you in for, if I may ask.
@DK:
Ah yes, the ‘violence never works,’ wheeze.
But a large number of American Indian nations, Britain, Hawaii, Germany, Japan, Italy all tell a different story. War works quite well in many situations, in others not so much. But you might note that Egypt and Jordan, two nations Israel has beat up on a few times, are not causing anyone any trouble. Much, probably most, of the square acreage of planet Earth is currently in the hands of people who took it from someone else. Including the entirety of the United States. BTW, anyone heard from Carthage lately?
@Michael Reynolds:
Who said “violence never works”? Not me.
But you’re a writer of fiction by trade, so we’re all well-versed in how much you love to make things up. As I’ve pointed out before, some around here enjoy arguing against their own reductio ad absurdum strawman arguments. I don’t get it, but it’s de rigeur at this point. Carry on.
So what? This is not a flex, for future generations to emulate. Wide swaths of GenZ and beyond are rejecting the colonizer’s selfish, unwoke, bloody, might-is-right mindset, and good on them. The world will improve when they are in charge and desperate, clinging, amoral retirement-age dingbats who wield far too much power in Russia, Israel, Iran, the US and elsewhere are dead and buried.
@Gustopher:
The blowing shit up worked a treat. The nation-building not so much.
Nah. If they wanted actual war they could quite easily force our hand by assembling a nuke. What they want is what they have going on right now.
People talk a good game, but no one wants war with the US. They just want us to bleed a little.
The idea this this can be dealt with just like a playground aquabble is absolutely ludicrous on it’s face.
Vietnam? Ring any bells?
Afghanistan ring any bells?
Iraq? Ding a ling a ling?
Does anybody really think that what Israel is doing in Gaza has even a snowball’s chance in hell of eliminating Hamas??? Israel is doing exactly what Hamas wants them to do: Create a whole new generation of Jihadis. Well done Netanyahu, well done. The children of Israel will pay for your sins.
Violence begets violence. Hate begets hate. And the merry-go-round keeps turning and turning and turning….
@OzarkHillbilly:
OTB has a few very childish commenters who would fit in nicely at elementary school recess, but not for their actual year of birth. We ought to be grateful we have a president who is “too old” — and acts his age.
This whole strike has been very weird. There is more to the story here somewhere. You don’t need this amount of time to approve, plan, and spend days publicly telegraphing a strike that consisted primarily of a couple of US-based bombers. It seems to me this was more strategic communication than a real effort to degrade capabilities.
So, will the message be heard, understood and change behavior? I have my doubts.
Looking at the big picture, I’d just return again to the fundamental problem of having pockets US forces in the Syria/Iraq region without a clear mission in the context of an ongoing civil war in Syria, a war in Gaza, Iranian proxy forces throughout, a weak Iraq government, and various other bad actors and nominal allies operating near this space.
Some people in the comments are making comparisons about invading Afghanistan or not wanting another war in the Middle East – well, the reality on the ground is that we are occupying parts of Syria and are a participant in the Syrian civil war. There is already a war in the Middle East, and we, de facto, invaded Syria to fight ISIS and attempt to overthrow the Assad government. We aren’t really trying that latter part very hard anymore, but our forces remain.
It’s risky to have US forces in that complex environment. The critics who think violence is not the answer very well could be right – but at the same time, it’s not clear what the alternative is that stops various militia forces, primarily backed by Iran, from attacking our forces in the region.
Is this very weird air strike going to do that, along with whatever follow-on actions the administration has said are coming? We’ll soon find out.
Digging in a bit more, the root problem here is that we’ve been half-assing our involvement in Syria and Iraq, which is how you get scattered bases of small numbers of troops far from support and vulnerable to well-supplied proxy forces, to say nothing of Iran itself. Michael wants us to hit Iran hard, but one (of many) problems is that Iran can hit back hard at these vulnerable outposts.
The half-assing is the problem. Either we should get committed or get the fuck out. I’m for the latter as I don’t see a strategic interest in continuing to have small pockets of forces amid a civil war where our goals aren’t exactly clear. Yeah, ISIS could come back. And if that happens, we can deal with that, or maybe get the other governments in the region to step up and take care of their own shit for once.
As I’ve noted before, the best way to fight proxies is with proxies. If we want to have a tit-for-tat with the Iranians, then let our snake-eaters embed with the SDF and our other allies, keep them well-supplied and trained, and let them fight that fight. If they need US air power, we’ve got plenty of that.
The point is, we shouldn’t be looking at how to maintain the status quo except with no more attacks by Iran’s friends. That’s not gonna work. We are long past time examining WTF are our interests are in Syria and what we are willing to spend in blood, treasure, and political capital to achieve those interests.
@Andy:
Reports are just now (4:30 PM EST) coming in of a second round of strikes, this time at targets in Yemen.
@Andy:
ISIS is still there, they’ve just been shrunken. We have been coexisting with these militias ever since we re-established in the ISIS war I believe. The difference is what is happening now due to the situation in Gaza.
Militias have to recruit, and nothing helps recruiting more than a cause. It’s possible the intel people are saying this is really for internal reasons for both these militias and the Houthis, who are still not in total control of Yemen but want to be.
To wit, the goal may be to get in their heads them to think differently vis-a-vis the US, convince them that perhaps picking on us is not worth the effort, and the warning is part of the plan to give them time to think about it, like how when corporal punishment was allowed for kids (spankings) it was not uncommon for parents or schools to tell the kid there is a spanking coming so they have to think about it all day. The goal is not to destroy them, just re-focus them. The militias have to scramble around to protect themselves in the meanwhile, placing them on the defensive anyway. It has it’s benefits.
Mike,
Feeling the need to utterly destroy enemies is in some ways a form of cowardice.
It can be cowardly to feel a need to wreak maximum damage in terror of retaliation. I frequently did not find it necessary, when someone took a swing at me, to destroy them. I gave them one pop and stepped back to see if they wanted to continue, and half the time they struck a defensive pose and waited to see what I would do. Look em’ in the eye and ask them if they’ve had enough. A significant portion of the time they’d be suddenly interested in talking it out. Only the first one feels good.
@Michael Reynolds:
A time in my life when red homicidal rage was my default mindset. RCW 9A.32, with a firearm enhancement. 5-20 sentence.
Three and a half years in a medium security prison and an equal amount of time in therapy, combined with a burning desire to never again be in a cell, gave me ability to appear a sane(ish), rational human being.
@Andy:
Absolutely agree. S*** or get off the pot. Not a question of “what’s the plan?” but “what are we trying to accomplish?” While our response may be appropriate, wtf are we doing there in the first place? Luddite not know.
@Michael Reynolds:
Ah, leading with genocide. Not a surprise from the pro-Israel faction at this point.
If we just want peace by the most expedient mechanism possible, why would we favor the tiny Jewish country in an area of Muslim countries when we could get a quicker solution by just wiping them out? If genocide is on the table, an about face on Israel would really simplify a lot of things in the region.
If genocide is on the table, why are dead Israelis not on the table? You make a compelling argument for the extermination of Israel.
@Flat Earth Luddite: My father’s wife got bone cancer (might have been breast cancer that metastasized, I can’t remember the details, in the bones now) and was expected to be dead in about 6 months. Since then she has been expected to be dead in about 6 months for about a decade, and the plan for her and some other people with similar situations has been not to beat cancer, but manage it and live with it. It’s like how AIDS went from a death sentence to a manageable illness.
Anyway, that’s what our troops are doing in the Middle East — not trying to win, but just to keep things under control enough that we can live with it.
——
Another aside: at Amazon there was often a tendency to kick the can down the road with technology and scaling issues. It’s a fine plan if you accept that you will have to kick the can further down the road. This was crystallized with a senior manager who said “we’re not looking for a final solution, just to get through the holiday season.” I objected to his use of “final solution” in that context, but in the current context it seems appropriate.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
To buy time and limit a wider war, pending the end of hostilities in Gaza and at the Israel-Lebanon conflict.
@Andy:
I suspect the condition of us being “all the way out” is viewed by Iraq as key to their disaster with ISIS. It’s painful history which is bound to leave scars. Same may apply to Syria.
Caught in interview on Firing Line with Petraeus last night. He’s still well connected so he may have insights to the thinking…and it seems the warning was psy-ops. Not only does it make them have to scramble and contemplate their mistake, but it’s a case of us telling them exactly what we are going to do and them contemplating not being able to do a damn thing to prevent it.