Tehran, Damascus, and Moscow to coordinate stepped up attacks on U.S. forces in Syria.

What will Biden do in response?

The Washington Post reports that Iran is arming militants in Syria to step up attacks on U.S. troops:

Iran and its allies are building and training forces to use more powerful armor-piercing roadside bombs intended specifically to target U.S. military vehicles and kill U.S. personnel, according to classified intelligence reports obtained by The Washington Post. Such attacks would constitute an escalation of Iran’s long-running campaign of using proxy militias to launch rocket and drone strikes on U.S. forces in Syria. . . .

“There has been a sea change in their risk-acceptance in killing Americans in Syria,” said Michael Knights, an expert on Iranian-backed militia groups and a founder of the website Militia Spotlight. Noting the devastating toll exacted by EFP bombs during the Iraq War, he added: “This will definitely kill people. And they’re thinking very hard about how to do it.”

According to the Post, Russia is also involved in this strategy, the goal of which is to drive the U.S. out of Syria:

Another document in the trove describes a new and broader effort by Moscow, Damascus and Tehran to oust the United States from Syria, a long-sought goal that could allow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to reclaim eastern provinces now controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. The past three U.S. administrations have maintained a small contingent of U.S. troops in Syria — about 900 at any given time, augmented by hundreds more contractors — to prevent a resurgence by Islamic State militants in the country, thwart Iranian and Russian ambitions, and provide leverage for other strategic objectives. . . .

The leaked documents describe plans for a wide-ranging campaign by U.S. opponents that would involve stoking popular resistance and supporting a grass-roots movement to carry out attacks against Americans in eastern and northeastern Syria. High-ranking Russian, Iranian and Syrian military and intelligence officials met in November 2022 and agreed on establishing a “coordination center” for directing the campaign, according to a classified intelligence assessment prepared in January. . . .

In the months since the leaked documents were written, Russia has engaged in new provocations against U.S. forces, including violating deconfliction agreements, flying over U.S. bases and buzzing U.S. aircraft.

(Emphasis added)

How will the Biden administration respond to this coordinated effort to kill American troops in Syria? It has three alternatives: (1) pull out of Syria, (2) continue the present policy (and that of the Trump administration) of limiting retaliation to small-scale strikes against targets in Syria, or (3) hit back hard both in Syria and Iran.

The second alternative is, for me, the worst because it keeps U.S. troops in harm’s way and is inadequate to protect them. Aaron Stein of the Foreign Policy Institute warns:

In the event that attacks by militia groups were to kill U.S. forces, Iran and Russia probably believe they can manage the escalation, because the U.S. military would probably limit its response to strikes against targets inside Syria, the default retaliation under both the Trump and Biden administrations

As long as Iran believes this, it has no incentive not to kill U.S. forces.

In my view, therefore, the only acceptable options are to pull our troops out or to escalate the scope of our retaliation against attacks on them.

The drawbacks of pulling out are that doing so would (1) hand a victory to Iran and Russia, (2) likely enable Assad to reclaim eastern provinces now controlled by Kurdish forces who have been our loyal allies (shades of Afghanistan), and (3) leave us unable to prevent the possible resurgence of the Islamic State in parts of Syria (shades of the Obama-Biden pullout in Iraq).

The drawback of more aggressive retaliatory strikes is that they risk a wider military confrontation with Iran. The magnitude of that risk is depends on whether Iran, if hit hard in retaliation for killing U.S. troops, would deescalate in order to avoid being hit even harder.

A proper commander-in-chief would be weighing the advantages and drawbacks of these two least-bad options — pulling out or escalating. But based on his performance to date, especially in Afghanistan, I fear that the current commander-in-chief will cling to present policy even as enemy attacks become more deadly. Then, after pressure on him mounts, I fear he will decide between his two better options in rash, knee-jerk fashion.