Joe Biden carried out his first military action as president of the United States, with airstrikes targeting Iranian-backed militia troops in Syria, in what the Pentagon said was retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a US service member and other coalition troops. The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, John Kirby, said the location of the strikes was used by Kataeb Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, two Iraqi pro-Iran groups operating under the Hashd bubble. “This proportionate military response was conducted together with diplomatic measures, including consultation with coalition partners,” Kirby said. “The operation sends an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect American and coalition personnel. At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner that aims to de-escalate the overall situation in eastern Syria and Iraq.”
I’m unsure why Biden allowed this drone strike to happen, because he has been very clear about wanting peace in the Middle East and wanting to pull troops out. He criticized Trump about it a lot during Trump’s presidency, but so far, in his first one hundred days, Biden has followed closely in Trump’s footsteps. The bombing in Syria has also been criticized for being a violation of international law, which makes me wonder how Biden will respond to this, if he even does. Biden doesn’t seem to be fulfilling his promise to the people that voted for him, because they want $15 minimum wages, but all Biden has given them so far is more Middle-Eastern bombings.
My connection to class is that the United States got involved in Syria because of the then president President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against the protesters. President Obama then said that the use by Assad’s government of chemical weapons a “red line” that would draw U.S. retaliation. A lot more complex events have happened since then, but nevertheless, we’ve been pretty involved in Syria since then. The connection to class is that Obama made a statement calling out and condoning the actions of President Bashar Assad because the United States had worked hard for the position of the democratic hegemon, which basically forced our hand into interfering in Syria. If we hadn’t set that image for ourselves and others, then we might have never gotten involved in Syria.