It appears that Israel and Iran are going to war, and the United States may join them. Two weeks ago, Israeli forces bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, and killed seven Iranian military officers, including a general. Iran promised to respond, The Wall Street Journal reports that the US government expects a direct Iranian attack on Israel over the weekend.
On Friday, the State Department issued travel restrictions for U.S. Embassy staff in Jerusalem, along with a warning about what to do in the event of rocket or artillery attacks. Iran has a variety of weapons that can reach Israel, from sophisticated ballistic missiles to cheap kamikaze drones.
By all accounts, the United States had no advance knowledge of the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate. (US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin complained to the Israeli military about the lack of warnings, The Washington Post reported.) Yet President Joe Biden still promised “armored” support to Israel.
“We will do everything we can to protect Israel’s security,” Biden said Wednesday. His press secretary added the next day that “we warned Iran not to use this attack as a pretext to further escalate its escalation in the region or to attack American facilities or personnel.”
Iran has issued its own warning: do not impede the situation. The Biden administration received an Iranian message stating that American forces will become a target if they hinder Iran’s retaliation, according to The interception. A small number of US troops are stationed in Israel for air defense and intelligence-sharing missions. It is General Michael E. Kurilla, head of American forces in the Middle East currently in Israel with them.
Iranian diplomats had a flurry of meetings this week with foreign representatives urging Iran not to take revenge. Even Israel has said that she will do it take revenge directly to any Iranian attack. But Iranian leaders are so angry that they have their backs against the wall.
“When they attack the consulate, it is as if they have attacked our territory,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in an Eid al-Fitr holiday speech on Wednesday. “The evil regime made a mistake and must be punished and so it will be.”
Israel has already bombed Iranian troops in Iraq and Syria, but Iran regarded these attacks as a loss. The difference appears to be that this month’s attack targeted a consulate. Attacking diplomatic facilities is considered one of the major red lines in international law. Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the Iranian consulate in Damascus was actually a military base “disguised as a civilian building”.
Although the consulate bombing came as a surprise to everyone outside of the Israeli leadership, the Israeli-Iranian conflict has been brewing for a long time. In recent years, Khamenei has called Israel a cancerous tumor that must be removed, and Israeli leaders in turn have said that Iran is an octopus that they will decapitate.
Iran is a longtime supporter of Hamas, the group that rampaged through Israeli cities last October, sparking the current war in Gaza. The New York Times reported this week that Iran is now delivering weapons to other Palestinian rebels in hopes of fomenting unrest in the Palestinian territories.
And since the war in Gaza began, Israel has also fought a border war in Lebanon against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant wanted to launch a full-scale attack on Lebanon early in the war, only to be rebuffed by the Biden administration.
So far the United States has supported Israel’s war effort remotely, providing weapons and intelligence. American troops, with few exceptions, have not been directly in the line of fire. The Biden administration has repeatedly insisted that it has “no plans or intentions to deploy the United States to the field in combat.”
But Biden now lets Israel and Iran make that decision for him. Although he was caught by surprise by the consulate attack, he hinted that the United States will absorb some of those consequences. Iran, meanwhile, is vague about exactly what these consequences will be.
The news site Amwaj.media speculated that Iran might attack the Golan Heights, a territory that Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war. Although Israel and the United States consider it Israeli territory, other countries consider the Golan as occupied Syrian land, which could dampen the international reaction to Iran’s attack.
Dismissing this speculation, an Iranian diplomatic source told Amwaj.media that he “doubts that anyone except a few actually knows” Iran’s next move. “These are all guesses.”