Consider This from NPR - With 3 Soldiers Dead, The U.S. Tries to Avoid Direct Conflict With Iran

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

A deadly attack on an U.S. military base in Jordan pulled the United States deeper into a regional conflict that it's trying to avoid. How the U.S. responds could determine whether the country enters another full scale war. We ask National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, what comes next.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Week by week, the U.S. has been pulled more deeply into a regional conflict that it was trying to avoid. And on Sunday, a deadly attack ratcheted up the stakes. We had a tough day last night in the police. We lost three brave souls. Speaking at a church in South Carolina, President Biden confirmed that three U.S. soldiers in Jordan were killed in a drone strike. Dozens more were injured. This is the first time American troops have been killed by enemy fire since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th. The Islamic resistance in Iraq is taking credit for the attack in Jordan. The U.S. government blames Iran, which backs groups like the Islamic Resistance.

Iran has what it calls an axis of resistance that includes several militias in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, and of course now in Yemen. Robin Wright is a distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Wright says the U.S. and its allies, like Israel, have been the target of these Iranian-backed militia groups. They've been involved in Iraq, American forces who are there to deal with the remnants of the Islamic State. In Syria, they've been attacked 90 times by these Iranian-backed militias, in Iraq, 60 times. And then you have the Houthis firing on naval forces dozens of times now since November 19th in the Red Sea, a vital strategic waterway. We have now a whole new front opening up in Jordan, and that's why this is such an important turning point. While Iran denies any responsibility

for the drone strikes over the weekend, Wright notes that they have a long history of supporting similar groups in the region. Iran has armed, trained, in some cases actually created these militias. But many of them are now two generations old. They've been around since the 1980s. And many of them are battle-hardened. Most of them have their own local agendas. They also want the Americans out. But Iran is clearly complicit in all of these actions because these groups would not be there if Iran hadn't supported them. The question is, has Iran actually ordered this one? And we still don't have an answer to that question. We've seen 10 different conflicts that have been playing out in the Middle East until October 7th. Israel faced Hamas to the south, Hezbollah to the north,

and then it had its shadow war with Iran. You had the Yemenis having a civil war, a regional war, and these wars are now intersecting with the Americans in Iraq and Syria as well. So the danger is that you see the Americans going in to try to prevent a wider war, to contain the violence, and instead only providing more targets. At Brooklyn Baptist Church on Sunday, President Biden said there is more to come. And we shall respond. Consider this. We still don't know how the U.S. will respond to the death of these American soldiers. The decision could determine whether the U.S. enters another full-scale war.

Coming up, we ask the spokesman for the National Security Council what comes next. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Monday, January 29th. It's Consider This from NPR. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby spoke with NPR's Steve Inskeep about how the U.S. will respond to the drone strike and how certain the U.S. is of Iran's role. How confident are you that the group claiming responsibility is in fact the group responsible? I think we're still working through the intelligence on this, certainly not in a position to validate one way or the other. But this is a group, as you rightly put it, an umbrella group that we are certainly familiar with, and they have been responsible for attacks in the past. They are supported by Qatab Hezbollah, which is one of the chief Iranian-backed militia groups there in the region. So it has all the earmarks of the support, at least at the very

minimum, of Qatab Hezbollah, but we're still working our way through that. Well, I'm trying to figure that out, and it may be hard to answer, but Iran has denied responsibility for this attack. Given the uncertainty, how would you describe Iran's involvement? Do you suspect they ordered it, or merely that they're connected with the groups involved? It's certainly hard to get your brain wrapped around the fact that Iran had nothing to do with this. I mean, they support these groups, they resource them, they train them, they provide them the capabilities, and they're certainly doing nothing to do with this. I mean, they support these groups, they resource them, they train them, they provide them the capabilities, and they're certainly doing nothing to discourage these attacks.

So I think it's pretty rich that Iran would say that they're absolving themselves of any responsibility. Clearly they have a sense of responsibility here. As for exactly what that looked like in this particular attack, again, we're still sorting our way through all the information. Our main focus right now is on the injured and making sure that they get the care that they need, obviously taking care of the families of those who tragically got the worst possible news over the weekend. But certainly, look, from an aggregate perspective, Iran is responsible. We're talking here in some cases, according to Tom Bowman, about traumatic brain injury.

And I guess we should just explain for people that means someone was near a large explosion. They may not have been touched by shrapnel or anything, but that can be a devastating injury. Absolutely. I mean, look, it is a physical injury. And usually, sometimes it can take a while to present itself for the individual. You'll have concussive effects. But it's not just a concussion. It is a physical injury to the brain as it is basically forced to collide with the skull inside. So, I mean, it can be very, very serious. And that's how we take it. We take traumatic brain injury like we

would any other serious injury. It's something we're going to obviously monitor and make sure that those troops get the care that they need. John, we had a debate in the newsroom here this morning. Is this a low-level regional war now that there has been violence in so many places that seem at least loosely connected to the Israel-Hamas war and Iran's opposition to Israel and the United States? We were asking, is it a low-level regional war or not quite that? How would you describe it? We're not talking about it in those terms. In fact, we don't want to see a wider conflict. In fact, everything the president has done since the 7th of October, Steve, has really been designed to try to de-escalate, to try to prevent a wider conflict.

We don't want that. We're not looking for a war with Iran. We're not looking for a broader regional conflict. And again, everything that we're doing and trying to do is to prevent that outcome. Although it would seem, if you assume that Iran is in some way behind these attacks in Jordan, attacks in Yemen, attacks in other places, attacks from Lebanon into Israel, if you assume Iran is behind all of that, that they're not deterred, that they're confident that they can get away at least with this level of violence? Clearly, they continue to encourage some of these attacks. They continue to resource these groups that conduct these attacks. So we haven't seen a change in the calculus of the Supreme Leader or the IRGC, and that's deeply concerning. And that's why we're going to take the right time to make the appropriate response decisions in the wake of this attack.

The president's taking this very seriously. It was a consequential attack now. We've had three service members killed, 30-some-odd wounded. And there will be a response, as the president said, and it'll be calibrated to hopefully have a better effect on the decision-making of these groups. Sounds like it's not calibrated the way you want yet. Again, we'll take a look at the options ahead of us. The president had a good meeting over the weekend with his national security team, and he'll review the options that are available to him, and we'll move forward.

That's National Security Council spokesman John Kirby speaking with NPR's Steve Inskeep. This episode was produced by Brianna Scott. It was edited by Andrew Sussman and Sammy Yenigan, who's also our executive producer. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.