Do We Give Them the War They Want?

be careful what they ask for

When are you really involved in a conflict/war … thought not officially and not all really wanting to be?

Well, if you define it as sending ordnance downrange and receiving fires - then regardless of if we want it or not, we are well deep into the Gaza conflict that kicked off October 7th.

First, let’s back up a bit on something I think I need to do a dedicated post on, perhaps for tomorrow; what is the Red OPLAN for this conflict?

To not get ahead of myself now that I seem to have decided what I will post on tomorrow, let’s strip away Red’s Israel “Line of Operation” and instead touch briefly on part of what I assume is Red’s USA Line of Operation.

When I say “Red” here, I am talking about Iran. None of this would happen without Iran’s backing, money, weapons, and larger network of proxies that all form different fingers of a fist aimed at Israel. The Houthi rebels in Yemen are Iranian proxies. Hezbollah in Lebanon are Iranian proxies. Various Shia militias in Syria are Iranian proxies. No small percentage of Iraqi Shia political entities are Iranian proxies. Hamas is an Iranian proxy.

There is no sense of irony here that the mostly Persian Iranians are using Arab proxies to do their wet work … but history is full of such comical nightmares of self-conflicting constructs.

I think it is clear that one of the USA goals is to keep this conflict contained. By contained, I mean limit it to Hamas in Gaza and Israel and to do what we can to prevent Hezbollah from opening a northern front, and to prevent the Houthi’s from entering in support of Hamas in a way that would force an Israeli reaction and distraction at the other end of the Red Sea. I’ll cover this in more detail tomorrow’s post.

The later part was exactly explains why Rota, Spain based USS Carney (DDG 64) spent the better part of two watches taking down what seems to be four land attack cruise missiles and 15 drones that were taking the long trip from Houthi controlled Yemen - directed by Iran - to Israel. The ship was not defending itself; it was stopping Houthi weapons from opening up another front against Israel.

Does that mean the US Navy has already directly joined in this conflict? I can argue both sides or the argument - but in an objective overview, yes.

Did the Houthi’s want the US Navy to get involved? No. Not this time, but we did anyway.

Last week we deployed UK based F-15E Strike Eagles to Jordan. That is clearly designed to deter Hezbollah in Lebanon and perhaps as part of possible action against Gaza should additional tragedy come to our roughly 10 Americans believed to be held hostage in Gaza. We’ve already had 33 Americans brutally murdered by Gazans.

We also have the USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group in the Eastern Mediterranean for the same reason, and the USS Ford Carrier Strike Group moved through the Suez Canal east to send a more personal message to Iran to keep out.

It appears that is a direct counter to what is emerging as a clear goal of Iran - to draw the USA further in to this conflict.

That is why their proxies are doing this;

U.S. forces based in the Middle East have been attacked at least 13 in the past week, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson revealed Tuesday.

Between Oct. 17-24, American troops were targeted 10 times in Iraq and three times in Syria “via a mix of one-way attack drones and rockets,” press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon.

While there is no evidence that Iran has ordered the attacks, Defense Department officials said Monday that all recent targeting of U.S. troops had “Iranian fingerprints all over it.”

“It’s been well-documented and you’ve heard U.S. officials across the podiums as well as policy leaders for years talk about Iran’s funding, equipping, guidance and direction, to partners and proxies across the region,” a senior defense official told reporters.

“That includes Lebanese Hezbollah, militia groups in Iraq and Syria, as well as the Houthis, in Yemen. So I think it’s fair to say when you see this uptick in activity and attacks by many of these groups, there’s Iranian fingerprints all over it,” they added.

Again, this did not happen without the Iranians greenlighting it.

They want one of two things; draw the USA in to a larger war, or humiliate the USA by attacking them and having them do nothing. They’ve killed over 30 Americans and hold another 10, that we know of, as hostage. This was not accidential.

They key for us is … what is our Commander’s Intent and Direction and Guidance in this regard. There is a whole spectrum of possible responses here that run the gambit from nothing to Linebacker III.

What will we do? I don’t know - but I have I&W that we are at least planning and preparing for a lot of different responses to the right of “nothing.”

Pray for peace - but I’m not sure we are going to get it.