US President Joe Biden ordered attacks on Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Iraq. This is not the first such attack, and it may not be the last such attack during his presidency.
But for some Democrats in Biden’s party, the important question is, does this pattern of attack and counterattack amount to a self-evident conflict?
Democrats said that if this is the case, the United States may have a direct war with Iran without the involvement of Congress. After two decades of “unending war”, this situation has become highly politically sensitive.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee told Reuters: “Given the frequency of attacks on U.S. troops, it is hard to say that this is not a war, and our response is now escalating.”
Murphy added: “What we have always worried about is that the United States will fall into war when the American people are actually unable to express their opinions.”
Endless war
The Democrats worried that the U.S. and Iran were about to break out of war in 2020. At that time, the U.S. assassinated the commander of the Quds Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Iran responded to this by launching missile attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq, resulting in more than 100 American soldiers. Injured. Prior to this, the US military and the armed factions supported by Iran had a series of mutual attacks.
In the latest round of mutual attacks, U.S. fighter jets launched attacks on combat facilities and arsenals in Syria and Iraq on Sunday. The U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon) said this was a drone launch against armed factions against U.S. troops and facilities in Iraq. Direct response to the attack.
On Monday, the U.S. military was attacked by missiles in Syria, seemingly in retaliation, but no one was injured. The U.S. military responded by using cannons to target the missile launch site.
Emma Ashford, a resident of the Atlantic Council, said on Twitter: “Many people think that the’endless war’ is just an emotional act, but this is indeed the kind of blow we saw again (Sunday). Properly described, there is no strategic goal, no clear end, only permanent existence and mutual attack.”
Downgrade
The White House confirmed that Sunday’s attack was aimed at reducing escalation and preventing future actions by armed factions against the US military.
Biden also said that this is a legal move, referring to a provision of the US Constitution that details the power of the president as commander-in-chief.
The President of the United States added: “I have the power conferred by Article 2, even those who stay in high-rises and do not want to recognize it.”
Brian Finukan, a former official of the Office of the Legal Counsel of the United States Department of State, said that, like previous administrations, this administration does not regard these incidents as an ongoing struggle.
Finukan, who now works for the International Crisis Group, added, “They describe it as sporadic hostilities.”
This compares this to the tanker war that broke out with Iran in the 1980s, when the administration of President Ronald Reagan regarded “every round of fighting as an isolated incident.”
However, experts said that this view does not take into account that Iran’s supporting armed factions are launching continuous escalation of the US military presence in Iraq.
Michael Knights of the Near East Policy Institute in Washington warned that with the use of GPS guidance and precise targeting of the intelligence, reconnaissance, and missile defense assets of the U.S.-led coalition, the use of drones by Iran’s support of armed factions appears to be becoming more and more dangerous .
Eliminate doubts
Knights said, “The number and quality of attacks by various Iraqi factions on coalition strongholds in Iraq are increasing. Unless deterrence is restored, the likelihood of American deaths will increase.”
Philip Smith of the Institute for Near East Policy in Washington also explained that driving the United States out of the region is the main goal of these factions. The secondary goal of these factions is to show the United States, the Iraqi government and other countries that they are using more advanced weapons. Such as drones.
Members of Congress are currently working to revoke some of the war authorization powers used by Republican and Democratic presidents to justify previous attacks on Iraq, Syria, and other countries.
But this will not necessarily prevent Biden or any other president from launching defensive air strikes.
Senator Murphy said after listening to a briefing by the Biden national security team about the incident that he is still concerned because the US military is in Iraq to combat ISIS, not Iran-backed militias.
Murphy added that if Biden is worried about going to Congress to fight for the power to wage war, then maybe he should dispel Americans’ suspicion of intervention in the Middle East.
Murphy said: “If Congress finds it difficult to authorize military actions against Iran’s supporting factions, it is mainly because the people we represent do not want these military actions to take place. This is the missing link in this discussion.”
.