Joe Biden is vowing to respond to a drone attack that killed US soldiers. What are his options?
Joe Biden has promised the US will “respond” to the attack on Tower 22, which left three US military personnel dead and dozens wounded.
The problem is that the US has already been responding to attack after attack on its bases in the Middle East – and has nevertheless failed to deter them.
There have been more than 160 so far.
Middle East latest: Biden decides on drone attack response
There have been more than 160 attacks on US bases in the Middle East. Source: ACLED
And the US has retaliated to those – the graphic below shows their attacks since 27 October.
US attacks since 27 October. Source: ACLED
They already include strikes against bases operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – the regime’s most powerful military force – rather than proxy militias.
Defence and security analyst Professor Michael Clarke said: “What the Americans were trying to do was be very graduated in their response – always to respond to individual attacks with another retaliation on the place where the attack came from.
“It obviously has led the Iranians to feel that they can keep on pushing America. So, I think the fact American service personnel have been killed has crossed a line.
“The Americans now have got to decide if they need to take a step up in terms of their response.”
Military base known as Tower 22 in northeastern Jordan where three US soldiers were killed in drone attack. Pic: Planet Labs PBC via AP
Would a response that included sanctions or perhaps a cyberattack really be a step up?
Many Iranian officials are already under sanctions and there is domestic pressure on Mr Biden to go further.
Professor Clarke suggests that another option would be to target Iranian ships in the Red Sea and connecting waters: “The Americans might regard that as a sensible target since they’re all part of the Iran’s attempts to create a crisis for America.”
IRGC fast boats operate regularly in the Strait of Hormuz and have seized oil tankers in the past.
Earlier this month, Iran also announced that its warship Alborz, a frigate, had entered the Red Sea.
Drone attacks on shipping. Source: Sky News Analysis
There’s also the Behshad.
The ship officially carries cargo but military analysts say it carries out surveillance that has been vital for all the Houthi attacks – another Iranian-backed militia that forms part of the same so-called “axis of resistance”.
Those would be Iranian assets, but still outside Iran. Further up the escalation ladder would be an attack on Iranian territory itself.
That could be limited to the coast, perhaps. Or they could strike the interior – perhaps even on nuclear facilities.
That is the very top of the ladder – and the US would not start there, if only to give itself room to climb in the future.
On Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said that his country “does not welcome the expansion of conflicts in the region”.
And Mr Biden said on Tuesday that “we don’t need a wider war in the Middle East” but he had decided on an unspecified response.
Others would argue that, with the death of US military personnel, the wider war is already here.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Read more:
What is the possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal?
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
British surgeons on life in Gaza
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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