When the enemy is afraid of escalating and you aren’t, the enemy has a problem.
“We do not seek another war. We do not seek to escalate. But we will absolutely do what is required to protect ourselves to continue that mission and to respond appropriately to these attacks…We will respond. We’ll do that on our schedule,” White House National Security Spokesman John Kirby stated.
Iran isn’t afraid of escalating. Its leaders and spokesmen don’t constantly express their fear of escalation. Instead, they escalate.
Their Jihadists seize control of shipping in the Red Sea. They invade Israel and kill over a thousand people. They hit a U.S. base inside Jordan.
The obsessions with “escalation” or “proportionate responses” are foolish. A military action is a tool. The question is what is the goal that this tool is accomplishing?
I can’t think of anything proportionate responses by a stronger nation reacting to aggression accomplish. In some conditions, such a response may maintain a balance of terror, but against an enemy who is constantly escalating, they clearly don’t work.
At best (and this is debatable) they may serve as some sort of brake slowing down the level of enemy escalation. But that’s also senseless.
When faced with escalating attacks, you can choose to withdraw from the arena of action (if possible, and this is also debatable) or if you have the capability, you either defeat the enemy or escalate beyond their ability to respond.
The Biden administration is once again choosing to do none of these things. Instead, it’s going to put on a show of responding in what it considers to be a proportionate way that is in theory meant to dissuade Iran from further attacks, but that clearly is not working.
And will never work.
When the enemy is afraid of escalating and you aren’t, the enemy has a problem. When you’re afraid of escalating and the enemy isn’t, you have a problem.
The goal of a balance of terror is to move from the latter to the former. Instead, Biden has moved us from the former to the latter.
Kasahun Tessema says
Americans are very stupid when these Democrats lead the country. Obama would say Islam is a religion of peace while Muslim suicide bombers in the name of their devil Islam god crate havoc all over the world. Now his then vice president the current president is saying peace in the face of war. This Democrats not only are morally corrupt they are also arrogant cowards.
Huapakechi says
It’s almost like the democrat leadership purposefully use weakness to encourage attacks. If we were to eliminate 90% of the leaders of iran, would the survivors be eager to continue their attacks?
Adams says
The USA has military units around the Iran borders . Why ? What would the US do if Iran had military bases in Cuba and Mexico? Nothing?
I don’t think so. Pull back USA . Nobody wants WW3 . NATO and the US gov are run by lunatics.
David says
Iran is already increasing attacks on America’s military bases, on American interests & on international shipping because of the Biden regimes’ timidity, weakness & cowardice.
If the U.S. were to “pull back” it would only encourage the evil psychopath jihadists to increase attacks on the U.S., continue to pirate the Red Sea & increasingly shell U.S. bases.
The only response these stone-age barbarians understand is overwhelming force. The U.S. needs to completely destroy the houthis & any other Iranian proxy attacking our interests. If we don’t then it will never stop.
Christopher Watson says
People don’t seem to learn from history. After the WW2 the German and Japanese armies were obliterated. From that time forward they have never caused any problems. But now we just drop a few bombs on our enemies and tell them not to be naughty. If we’d established a large US/British/French base in the ME and kept it there most of the present problems would not exist.
Gandalfs Trouserpress says
Some do want WW3 – it’s called jihad. ‘Pulling back’ has not worked.
‘NATO and the US gvt are run by lunatics’ – well, that sounds thought through.