Iran has waged war on American forces before when they believed they could get away with it. And I'm not even going to go into the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon or the whole hostage crisis after Iranian nutballs stormed and captured our embassy in Tehran or that bombing plot against Saudi diplomats in Washington, D.C. or Iranian activity in Afghanistan. So even if we acted it would not be in a vacuum.
Just in case Iran is thinking of ramping up their war against America again, our secretary of state made a surprise visit to Iraq to confer with the Iraqis over the issue of safeguarding our forces in Iraq from Iranian attacks:
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Tuesday and met Iraq's prime minister and other top officials to discuss the safety of Americans in Iraq and explain U.S. security concerns amid rising Iranian activity.
Notwithstanding the hyperventilating over the deployment of a carrier strike group and bombers to the Middle East. People, the "bombers" consist of just four B-52s. This is not a serious attack force.
And it still won't be if we send two more bombers and return one of several Patriot batteries withdrawn from the region last year.
Mind you, we do have other assets in the region. So we can respond if Iran lashes out.
And what does this even mean?
Intelligence indications that Iran had moved short-range ballistic missiles by boat in waters off its shores, an American official said Tuesday.
Are they mounted on vessels? Were the missiles moved by boats to Iranian islands in the Strait of Hormuz? What?
But there is no way we are preparing to initiate combat. As I've noted before, economic warfare that gets severe enough can be felt by the target to be little different from kinetic military action. We should be careful out there.
This adds to the pressure on Iran:
President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered new sanctions on Iran, this time targeting the Islamic Republic's export revenues from its industrial metals sector, and vowed to keep squeezing Tehran unless it "fundamentally alters" its policies.
So Iran is under more economic pressure and may lash out with terror or direct military action under that pressure.
And again, the Iraqi need to rein in those pro-Iran Iraqi militias is very important objective for Iraq to achieve for themselves and not just to protect American and other coalition forces supporting Iraq's fight against Sunni jihadis.
UPDATE: The Pentagon notes the Patriot addition and discusses the addition of an LPD amphibioius warfare ship that also has command and control facilities useful for coordinating with allies. The statement also says:
The United States does not seek conflict with Iran, but we are postured and ready to defend U.S. forces and interests in the region.
If Iran shoots first, we'll be the ones who shoot last.
UPDATE: This author discusses what moving missiles "by boat" could mean. After discussing my options he says it could mean smuggling. Which is actually what I was thinking when I wrote "What?" But I could not say.
I don't rule out ship-based or island-based simply because they are more vulnerable to our forces. That vulnerability doesn't matter if the missiles are used in a first strike. Which is what I worry about.
