{"id":35233,"date":"2023-10-26T10:47:54","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T10:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/the-us-has-deployed-troops-in-the-middle-east-can-it-avoid-a-commitment-trap"},"modified":"2023-10-26T11:14:01","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T11:14:01","slug":"the-us-has-deployed-troops-in-the-middle-east-can-it-avoid-a-commitment-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/the-us-has-deployed-troops-in-the-middle-east-can-it-avoid-a-commitment-trap","title":{"rendered":"The US has deployed troops in the Middle East. Can it avoid a \u2018commitment trap\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>News of the surprise attack and the loss of life had a shattering effect when it reached the Pentagon. \u201cIt was the worst day of my life. It was almost like Pearl Harbour,\u201d recalled Larry Korb, then the US assistant defense secretary and now a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress, a Washington thinktank.<\/p>\n

The date was 23 October 1983 and a suicide bomber from the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah had attacked a US military barracks in Beirut, killing 241 service personnel, mostly marines. A near-simultaneous separate assault on a French military base in the city killed paratroopers.<\/p>\n

It was a devastating blow to a force that had entered the war-stricken Lebanese capital the year before as peacekeepers, rather than belligerents and were not even protected by armed guards at the gates of their compound.<\/p>\n

US embassy officials in Beirut this week marked the episode\u2019s 40th anniversary knowing that it had suddenly taken on a poignant contemporary resonance.<\/p>\n

With the Middle East in turmoil once more following this month\u2019s deadly attack on Israel by Hamas, the Biden administration has dispatched 2,000 marines to the region along with two aircraft carrier groups.<\/p>\n

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system and Patriot air defense systems have also been sent in what Pentagon officials have bluntly stated is a show of force meant to deter attacks on American interests and allies.<\/p>\n

Implicit in the commitment is the understanding that \u2013 with an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza seemingly set to follow its ongoing bombardment \u2013 Middle East stability is a dead letter and the dangers of a wider conflict are real and present.<\/p>\n

It is in contrast with the mood of US officials 40 years ago, who \u2013 complacent in the thought that the marines had protected status as part of an international peacekeeping force \u2013 foresaw no such perils, meaning the assault came out of the blue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were, like, \u2018Holy smoke, this is unbelievable,\u2019\u201d said Korb.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose people were there so Israel [which had invaded Lebanon the previous year with the goal of expelling Palestinian fighters] could withdraw and were meant to bring regional stability.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t as if they went into an attack on Hezbollah or anything. Nobody had envisioned such a thing. There was no Plan B. \u201d In the aftermath, hawks in President Ronald Reagan\u2019s administration pressed for a retaliatory attack on Iran, Hezbollah\u2019s patron.<\/p>\n

But Reagan \u2013 belying his own hawkish credentials \u2013 demurred and chose a different course, sending the remaining marines back to their ships in what was termed a \u201cstrategic re-deployment\u201d.<\/p>\n

For Korb, it was one of the Republican president\u2019s \u201cfinest hours\u201d. \u201cHe governed very responsibly. If we\u2019d attacked Iran, who knows what the hell would have happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While Reagan was able to avoid the dreaded trap of mission creep \u2013 the gradual, incremental expansion of a limited intervention beyond its original limited goals \u2013 it may be a harder trick for President Joe Biden to pull off in what seems an even more complicated and volatile scenario than the marines entered in 1982.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah fighters rise their group flags and shout slogans, as they attend the funeral procession of two comrades killed by Israeli shelling, in Kherbet Selem village, south Lebanon. What is Hezbollah, and how will it influence the Israel-Hamas war? Read more<\/p>\n

Topping the administration\u2019s list of fears is an outbreak of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel on the Lebanese border, effectively opening up a two-front war that could bring in Iran.<\/p>\n

Further complicating the American calculus is the presence of 2,500 US troops in Iraq and another 900 in eastern Syria, both on missions against the Islamic State, and which have already been subject to recent drone attacks.<\/p>\n

With militias loyal to Iran at large in both countries, these forces are liable to come under further attack if the US becomes active in a war against Hezbollah. The stated US goal is deterrence against a wider war.<\/p>\n

Yet its force was called into action last week when the USS Carney, a guided missile destroyer, shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched by Iranian-backed Houthi rebel forces in Yemen on the grounds that they were potentially heading for targets in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis military deployment is a double-edged sword,\u201d said Joe Cirincione, a Washington national security analyst and former staff member of the congressional armed services committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe administration needs it to deter others from joining the attacks on Israel. But if they are indeed used, they could become part of the very escalation of the conflict that the United States fears. \u201d<\/p>\n

The Biden administration, having pledged redoubled loyalty and military support to Israel following the Hamas attacks, now faces the danger of being caught in a \u201ccommitment trap\u201d according to Cirincione, a potential scenario he likens to the run-up to the first world war.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Israel continues the bombardment of Gaza and then launches a ground invasion that kills thousands of Palestinians, it\u2019s difficult to see how Hezbollah, or forces operating in Syria stay out of the conflict,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the US carries out its implied threat, you could have Israel bombing Lebanese and Palestinian populations around Israel\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

Strategically and politically, the US couldn\u2019t stand by if Hezbollah launched a major attack on Israel, and that\u2019s fraught with potentially disastrous outcomes.<\/p>\n

Under those circumstances, Iran may feel it has no choice but to enter into the conflict directly \u2013 and then you are stuck in the commitment trap. You commit to the defense of your ally hoping to deter a war. It fails to deter the war but now you are sucked into it in a way you never desired. \u201d<\/p>\n

Although Iran, despite its bellicose rhetoric, is unlikely to want a war with Israel, Cirincione concludes, \u201cthis is now a world war one scenario, where countries are pledging to other countries and belligerents drag them into a war they don\u2019t seek\u201d.<\/p>\n

That alarming prospect has fuelled a frantic round of diplomacy by Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, who has urged Israel to call a \u201chumanitarian pause\u201d to its onslaught on Gaza.<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, American military officials are reportedly urging Israel to refrain from a full-scale ground assault on the territory that could result in mounting Palestinian civilian casualties and inflame regional tensions.<\/p>\n

To win over Israeli leaders thirsting for revenge and wanting to make good on their pledge to destroy Hamas once and for all, they are warning against the repetition of errors made by US forces in Iraq, when it made incursions into crowded population centres.<\/p>\n

The approach is a variation of the theme touched on by Biden in his visit to Israel last week when he warned against repeating what he described as an American mistake in being \u201cconsumed by rage\u201d after the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

Whether American involvement deepens depends on the depth and length of Israel\u2019s Gaza offensive, said Nader Hashemi, director of Alaweed Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Washington\u2019s Georgetown University, with US military deployments unlikely to deter the country\u2019s regional enemies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the images being seen from Gaza continue to shock people\u2019s conscience in the region, and if there\u2019s an attempt at population transfer .
\n. then there\u2019s certainly going to be attacks on American targets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Lesotho<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. News of the surprise attack and the loss of life had a shattering effect when it reached the Pentagon. \u201cIt was the worst day of my life. It was almost like Pearl Harbour,\u201d recalled Larry Korb, then the US assistant defense secretary and now a senior fellow at the Centre for American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":35232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[233,246,245,443],"class_list":["post-35233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-us"],"yoast_head":"\nThe US has deployed troops in the Middle East. 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