US braces for retaliation after attack on Iran soil

Shortly after an airstrike widely attributed to Israel destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Syria, the United States had an urgent message for Iran: We had nothing to do with it.

But that may not be enough for the US to avoid retaliation targeting its forces in the region. A top US commander warned yesterday of danger to American troops.

And if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent broadening of targeted strikes on adversaries around the region to include Iranian security operatives and leaders deepens regional hostilities, analysts say, it’s not clear the United States can avoid being pulled into deeper regional conflict as well.

The Biden administration insists it had no advance knowledge of the airstrike this week. But the US is closely tied to Israel’s military, regardless. The US remains Israel’s indispensable ally and unstinting supplier of weapons, responsible for some 70 per cent of Israeli weapon imports and an estimated 15 per cent of Israel’s defence budget. That includes providing the kind of advanced aircraft and munitions that appear to have been employed in the attack.

Israel hasn’t acknowledged a role in the airstrike, but Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said the US has assessed Israel was responsible.

Multiple arms of Iran’s Government served notice that they would hold the United States accountable for the fiery attack. The strike, in the Syrian capital of Damascus, killed senior commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for Syria and Lebanon, an officer of the powerful Iran-allied Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, and others.

American forces in Syria and Iraq already are frequent targets when Iran and its regional allies seek retaliation for strikes by Israelis, notes Charles Lister, the Syria programme director for the Middle East Institute.

“What the Iranians have always done for years when they have felt most aggressively targeted by Israel is not to hit back at Israelis, but Americans,” seeing them as soft targets in the region, Lister said. —AP