Biden technically retaliated for an Iranian-backed attack on a base with American personnel. But it was calibrated to be insignificant.
American forces struck back at an Iranian militia in Syria:
US airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in eastern Syria killed at least one fighter and wounded several others in what US officials said was a calibrated response to rocket attacks against American personnel in Iraq.
At President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria. These strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against American and Coalition personnel in Iraq, and to ongoing threats to those personnel. Specifically, the strikes destroyed multiple facilities located at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups, including Kait’ib Hezbollah (KH) and Kait’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS).
So we got some "facilities." This strike was our retaliation for Iranian rocket attacks on an Iraqi base where Americans work.
Naturally, that's different than something done by a certain past president. Because reasons. It always is:
Or in this case, Obama's former vice president.
Gosh! I hope not too many enemies were in the facilities! On the bright side, at least we didn't basically bomb empty tents.
Actually, on the bright side I'm glad our proportional and calibrated response wasn't a pallet of cash air dropped in Iran.
I'm not against using force against enemies. I'm against using ineffective force against enemies. The recent attack appears to have been ineffective:
In effect, the February 25 strike was the equivalent of President Bill Clinton’s cruise missile attack on the Taliban intelligence ministry in 1998, timed for the night when the building was largely empty. Rather than change Taliban behavior, the group concluded from the American choice of target that they would face no substantive penalty for hosting Al Qaeda and continued to do so until the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
That's the unambiguous signal the air strike sent to Iran. Nothing will stand in the way of Iran Nuclear Deal 2.0
And the "proportionality" misinformation that really bugs me has raised its ugly head again. Let's nip that made up standard in the bud, shall we?
UPDATE: The fight goes on:
A barrage of at least 10 rockets targeted an airbase housing American troops in western Iraq on Wednesday, the U.S.-led coalition said.
The rockets hit al Asad Air Base in Anbar province at about 7:20 a.m., Army spokesman Col. Wayne Marotto said in a Twitter post. Marotto did not say whether there were any casualties.
America is Iran's enemy whether or not America wants to admit that Iran is America's enemy.
