America is getting closer to open conflict with Iran

‘Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy,’ said Sun Tzu. The Biden administration takes the opposite approach. America’s Commander-in-Chief spent much of the last week warning America’s antagonists in the Middle East that the US would respond to the killing of three of its troops in Jordan last weekend. And last night the retaliation finally began. US forces used some 125 bombs on seven sites in Syria and Iraq, targets that the Pentagon believes are tied to attacks on Americans. 

Iran was not hit, importantly, even though the White House has directly blamed the Iranian regime for the many attacks against western assets since the war in Gaza began in October. The widespread fear is that America is getting sucked into a regional conflict with a heavily armed state — a conflict that could, given Iran’s close relationship with Russia and China, draw the west into a major global clash. 

Biden, his Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his National Security Council seem well aware of this danger, which is why last night’s strikes were clearly calibrated to be retaliatory and not escalatory.