The march to war in the Middle East feels almost unstoppable and Britain will be drawn in. But there is one slim hope...

WHEN America’s elderly president was confronted by the slaughter of U. S. soldiers in a cold-blooded surprise attack on a Middle Eastern military base, he lived up to his tough reputation.

He withdrew his troops to a safe distance — before punishing the Islamic radicals with a brutal bombardment.

But that president was not Joe Biden. The year was 1983 and Ronald Reagan, then 72, used air strikes and the devastating firepower of the battleship USS Missouri to impose crushing reprisals on the Lebanese terror group responsible for the deaths of 241 U.S. personnel in Beirut.

Unlike Biden, Reagan was regarded by friend and foe alike as a gunslinger who would not back away from a fight. He was popular, presided over a thriving economy and was the leader of an undisputed superpower. He was also trusted by his European allies and wasn’t facing an imminent election.

Bullied

None of those things is true for Biden, which means it will be much harder for him to retaliate effectively and proportionately following the horrific attack at the weekend on a U. S. service base in Northeast Jordan, close to the Syrian border which left three servicemen dead and more than 34 wounded, many with traumatic brain injuries.

The President, now 81, is no Reaganite Western hero. He is increasingly seen as a posturing weakling, bullied by everyone from the Republicans to a revanchist Kremlin. And, like all weaklings, he lacks the authority to make his enemies back down by threats alone. He has two options — run away or lash out.

Where Reagan could act wisely in response to the suicide bombing on the Beirut barracks by one of the first Islamic jihadi groups, the pressure on Biden is more intense because of his long and naive record of Iranian appeasement. Today’s crisis is the inevitable result.

To be fair, Biden is struggling to deal with a much more complex geopolitical picture than Reagan faced during the Cold War. Then, Washington had its allies under control, as did Moscow. Now America’s friends such as Israel and her foes, including Iran, pursue their own goals.

That makes pulling U. S. troops out of the region harder if the militants step up their terror attacks — perhaps by targeting U. S. civilians on domestic soil. But if Biden continues with ineffectual ‘punitive’ strikes against the Islamists, he will do little but waste expensive ordnance.

This is what George W. Bush once derided as ‘ firing a $ 2 million missile at a $ 10 empty tent’ — before he squandered trillions doing just that in Iraq.

Lashing out with no longterm objective in mind will ultimately make America look powerless — and that’s something Biden cannot afford when he is already trailing in many polls to his presidential challenger, Donald Trump.

That leaves him with one option: a massive retaliation. But against whom? The group claiming responsibility for Sunday’s murderous onslaught on a military base known as Tower 22 calls itself ‘Islamic Resistance in Iraq’. Despite denials from Tehran, that is almost certainly a proxy brigade for the regime in Iran.

The carnage at the U.S. base, reportedly caused by a drone bomb at a barracks, suggests sophisticated technology and weaponry were involved.

Such an attack must have been painstakingly planned. This echoes another Reaganera bombing, on the U. S. embassy in Lebanon, which was rehearsed using a mockup of the target site — paid for and built by Iran.

The head of the Republican opposition in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has called on Biden to ‘ exercise American strength to compel Iran to change its behaviour’.

His fellow Republican senator, Tom Cotton, went even further: ‘ The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces. Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward.’

Trump has been quick to blame the Biden administration for the crisis: ‘Three years ago, Iran was weak, broke and totally under control,’ he posted. ‘Then Joe Biden came in and gave Iran billions of dollars, which the regime has used to spread bloodshed.’

Trump is prone to hyperbole but on this occasion he has a point. Since 2021, Iran has benefited by an estimated $100 billion (£79 billion), mostly thanks to the non-enforcement of U.S. oil sanctions.

There has also been a $10 billion sanctions waiver, paid last November as part of a deal whereby Tehran promised not to develop a nuclear bomb, plus $6 billion in cash paid as ransom for the release of American hostages.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans have tried to control Iran using money as their weapon.

Showdown

But both political parties have discovered to their frustration that neither paying bribes nor blocking payments has worked.

Iran wants money — and the mullahs will take financial inducements if offered. But Tehran is ruled by religious fundamentalists not primarily motivated by wealth.

A spokesman for the Islamists who attacked Tower 22 summed up their mindset: ‘We don’t care about the U. S. threats to respond. Martyrdom is our prize.’

In such a context, nothing can be more terrifying for the West and its moderate allies in the Middle East, such as Jordan’s King Abdullah II, than the prospect of an ayatollah’s thumb on the nuclear red button.

So, on one side, we see an enraged America, led by a feeble president who is liable to launch a massive escalation because he is afraid to do anything else.

And on the other are the terrorist death cults, manipulated by fanatical Iranian mullahs, actively seeking an apocalyptic showdown with a superpower they call The Great Satan. The march towards war feels almost unstoppable.

Certainly Britain, and maybe our European allies in Nato, will be drawn in, however much we don’t want it.

We share a base in Bahrain with the U. S. Navy, for example, and we are already embroiled in retaliations against the Houthis in Yemen. We will have little choice but to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Washington.

Tinderbox

Meanwhile, anything that hurts the U. S. is good for Moscow’s war on Ukraine, especially as a conflict in the Middle East will increase the value of Russian oil exports.

And Beijing will be glad to see America’s attention distracted from Chinese tensions with Taiwan.

There is one slim hope. The Tower 22 attack appears to be another extension of the war in the Gaza Strip, like the Houthi missile and drone blitzes on shipping in the Red Sea. If Israel and the Palestinians could agree on a ceasefire, the Islamist terror attacks on U.S. personnel might stop.

That would allow Biden, like Reagan 40 years ago, to claim victory. But a Gaza peace deal can’t happen without the release of all the remaining hostages held by Hamas. Even then, there’s little sign Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu would consider anything short of Hamas’s total surrender. So don’t count on it.

An all- out war between America and Iran and its proxies might be postponed by a Gaza ceasefire. But the tinderbox that is the Middle East will still be vulnerable to the next spark, and could soon engulf the world.