On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that the US military conducted an airstrike against a weapons storage facility in Syria. The facility was being used by — no surprise here — the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Nor was this strike the first of its kind, either. It was the second in two weeks, with the first occurring on October 26.

Between October 7 and November 7 — since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict — US military forces in Iraq and Syria have been attacked by rockets and drones 40 times. The bulk of these attacks occurred after the military targeted the IRGC facilities.

While no service member has lost their life, 46 of them have suffered injuries, including 25 who have sustained traumatic brain injury, or TBI.

Also on Wednesday, Houthi rebels shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone off the coast of Yemen.

Reaper Drone. AvgeekJoe is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

A senior US defense official tells me "We can confirm that a U.S. military MQ-9 remotely-piloted aircraft was shot down while in international airspace over international waters off the coast of Yemen. U.S. Central Command officials are assessing the incident.”

— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) November 8, 2023

In response, two F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bombers carried out the attacks on the Syrian-based IRGC facility. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement:

This precision self-defense strike is a response to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by IRGC-Quds Force affiliates.

Austin added:

The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.

Let’s just hope that Biden does a better job of defending US military personnel here than he did in Afghanistan.

Is the US Military Escalating into Another War?

Jon Hoffman, foreign policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, thinks so. In an article that appeared in the Quincy Institute’s Responsible Statecraft, Hoffman wrote on Monday:

The recent barrage of ballistic missiles and drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi movement at Israel — coupled with a statement by the group that such attacks will continue — and the continued attacks on U.S. positions in the region show this conflict is expanding fast.

Then again, Tablet magazine has called the Quincy Institute “Washington’s Weirdest Think Tank” for its history of promoting normalization between Iran and the US. Not only that, its backers include the likes of Charles Koch and George Soros, so support for the US military isn’t exactly in its wheel house.

On the other hand, Bonchie at Red State thinks this is just business as usual between the US and Iran:

Some are trying to hype this up as a major escalation, but I’d caution anyone running with that theme. The U.S. military has been bombing Iranian proxies in Syria for over a decade, whether to protect bases in the area or to destroy ISIS. This is likely just a brush-back pitch to show that we will respond to continued aggression. The overall situation remains the same, though, which is that there is nothing the Iranians want less than an actual war with the United States.

Indeed, he is correct that these airstrikes on Iranian proxies is nothing new. For example, in June, 2019, Houthi rebels shot down one Reaper drone over Yemen and attempted to take out another. Moreover, that same month Iran shot down a Navy RQ-4 Global Hawk drone in international waters off its coast.

And recently, on October 18, Navy destroyer USS Carney took out several drones and missiles off the coast of Yemen.

Plus, tensions between Iran and the US had ratcheted up in 2020 after the US airstrike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, former head of the IRGC. Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at US troops in Iraq, leaving over 100 of them with TBI, for which 29 received Purple Hearts.

So we’ve seen this movie before. Still, fasten your seatbelts — we’re entering a whole lotta turbulence on this flight that none of us wanted to take.

Featured image: “F-15A/B/C/D/E Eagle and F-15E Strike Eagle” by AirmanMagazine is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. Cropped.