Iran may attack Israel and US forces in the Middle East, officials warn.

 

Iranians burn an Israeli flag. USA Today/Reuters. 

US officials are warning that Iran may attack Israel and US forces in the Middle East. USA Today. The attacks would be in retaliation for an Israeli strike on the Iranian embassy in Syria that killed Iranian commanders. American forces in Iraq and Syria are on a high alert as the Biden administration worries they could come under attack. Iran has vowed revenge for the attack on their embassy and the issue was discussed between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel vowed that they would strike back if Iran attacked. Israel is involved in a large regional war in response to the October 7th terror attacks. 

I talked about the initial strike on Iran's embassy here.

My Comment:

I talked yesterday that Israel's strike on Iran's embassy was going to cause a major amount of blowback and it appears that is getting closer every day. I am hearing rumors the Iranian attack could happen anytime between now and after the end of Ramadan, which is next Tuesday. 

I don't think that there is much doubt that Iran is going to do something. An attack on an embassy is an act of war and it has to be responded to, regardless of the circumstances. Given that the attack was deliberate and Israel has not apologized for it, Iran would lose a lot of face if they did not respond in some way. And I wouldn't be surprised if Iran had been waiting for a reason to go to war with Israel. 

The real question is what kind of response will it be? A tit-for-tat limited attack on an Israeli embassy? An uptick on attacks from Iranian proxies in Syria, possibly involving Hezbollah as well? Or a general offensive. Right now we aren't sure and it's kind of hard to tell. The first option would be more reasonable, doing so might avoid an all out war between Israel and Iran. The second one would also be limited in scale and would mostly risk Iran's proxies. But the third one is the one we should be worried about, if Iran goes all out in this attack and targets Israel directly we have a real chance of being drawn into the war. 

This goes doubly true if Iran targets US forces in Syria and Iraq. There was a rumor on X today that Biden and Iran had made some kind of deal behind Israel's back to avert this, but I consider that rumor to be dubious at best. The Biden administration is no friend of Iran and my guess is if Iran goes all out against Israel they will attack US forces as well. They would almost have to, not doing so would leave their proxies in Iraq and Syria vulnerable to US attack. 

If a war does come and the United States gets drawn in, which we already have been in the Red Sea crisis, I doubt it will be a popular war. Many on the left hate Israel and would be actively cheering on the Iranians, like they do Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen. On the right, there is a real war weariness and the general feeling that Israel should handle their own problems without US involvement. The only people that will be happy are the neocons on both sides of the political spectrum, and those folks are mostly a spent power. If a war happens it will be bad for Biden's reelection campaign. 

The only thing that I could think of that might help Biden is if there is an attack on US soil from Iran. Though given the open border, Biden would be responsible for that, but it's possible that people could rally against Iran if they attack us directly. I think there is a real chance of that as both Israel and Hezbollah are known to have operatives here in the United States and they could easily reinforce them through the open border. I don't think a chance of a direct attack on the United States is likely, Iran knows that the consequences for doing so would be extreme, but if they are losing the war anyways they might consider it. 

Speaking of winning or losing the war, I'm not expecting either side to do so. I am guessing that there is going to be a lot of death and destruction on both sides but with neither side actually being able to destroy each other. The logistics of it is the main problem, neither country borders each other and they only have limited supplies of weapons. Iran could keep it up for quite awhile though, but you can't destroy a country with rockets and drones alone, you need boots on the ground and I can't imagine Iran being able to actually invade Israel, even if they get help from their various proxies and allies. 

Finally, I have to mention that the war could go nuclear. Israel has the bomb and they have accused Iran of being close to developing one for the past couple of decades. I don't think Iran has the bomb but that could change and they could use chemical weapons as well. To be fair, I think that is very unlikely, Israel is only really going to use nukes if they are about to lose the war and that isn't happening. And nobody has confirmed that Iran actually has weapons of mass destruction. As bad as this war might be it's not likely to get that bad...