The US and Iran’s Not-Quite-Escalation
Neither has joined in on the Israel-Hamas conflict, but both have shown that they will not be ignored.
By: Caroline D. Rose
Iran has spent the better part of the conflict in Gaza engaged in a war of words.
Its foreign minister said as early as Oct. 15 that the conflict could spread into multiple fronts.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned that Iran couldn’t be expected to hold back if Israeli attacks continued.
And the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Iranian-sponsored militia networks in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq are ready to strike if Israel oversteps in Gaza.
In no uncertain terms, Iran’s entry would mark a dramatic escalation in the conflict.
It’s not clear exactly what Iran’s red line is.
And with the heavy cost of direct intervention against Israel – and, in that case, of inevitable confrontation with the United States – it’s also uncertain whether Iran would make good on its promises if Israel persists in its unabated campaign in Gaza.
But it is clear that Iran is ready to ratchet up the pressure if it needs to.
In 2014, U.S. forces re-entered Iraq and, for the first time, stationed forces in Syria to confront the Islamic State, which was rapidly consolidating territorial control throughout the region.
The fight against IS fractured the organization and crippled its capacity to launch large-scale attacks, but it also resulted in an increased presence of Iranian-backed militias, which were able to gain a stronger foothold in Iraq proper and along the Syria-Iraq border.
(Iran has long employed militias to act as proxies throughout the region to extend its security and political influence in neighboring countries, build rapport in the region and pressure adversaries like Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Israel.)
This forced the U.S. to rethink its objectives in the Middle East in order to ensure that its presence in Iraq and Syria could also serve as a deterrent to Iranian ambitions.
The competition to achieve their respective goals naturally tends to produce a careful diplomatic dance of threats and tit-for-tat strikes on security forces.
Over the past several years, they have exchanged rocket strikes on multiple occasions, with Iran targeting defensive assets but generally avoiding killing U.S. personnel so as not to escalate things past the point of no return.
But things changed in January 2020, when the U.S. killed IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani, a key architect of Iran’s proxy strategy.
Iran responded with 12 direct missile strikes against U.S. forces stationed at the al-Asad airbase in western Iraq and the airbase in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, resulting in 110 casualties.
The development prompted Washington to transfer assets throughout that spring and summer, consolidating the U.S. posture primarily to Irbil, Baghdad and a few other strategic posts in Iraq, reducing personnel to 2,500 and downgrading the mandate of Operation Inherent Resolve from a combat to an advisory role.
Meanwhile, U.S. forces winnowed down the number of bases they had in northeast Syria and reduced their presence to 900 personnel, opting instead to rely on partners such as the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Even so, U.S. forces continued to engage in occasional proportional strikes against Iranian-aligned militias.
Knowing that the situation in Gaza could escalate – and that if it does, it will almost certainly involve Iran – the U.S. sent a variety of assets to the region, including 2,000 Marines, two aircraft carriers and several warships.
The idea was to deter Iran from tapping, say, Hezbollah to engage in large-scale attacks in northern Israel, and to have assets in place in case deterrence doesn’t work.
Iran has yet to enter the fray, but as with the U.S. deployments, it has signaled that it will not be ignored.
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched three ballistic cruise missiles and drones in the Red Sea, which were intercepted by a U.S. destroyer.
(The U.S. said that they could have been directed at Israel.)
In Iraq, U.S. forces stationed at the Ain al-Asad airbase, al-Harir airbase, Baghdad International Airport and elsewhere were targeted in drone and missile attacks.
In Syria, U.S. forces stationed at the al-Tanf base were similarly targeted.
No attack resulted in anything more than minor injuries, but they sent a clear message that if the U.S. sought to build up its presence in the region, Iran would do its best to make it as uncomfortable as possible.
In these kinds of situations, it doesn’t take much for carefully measured threats to lead to indirect confrontation.
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