MeterThis is another military strike ordered by the president Joe Biden The United States has increased its pressure on Iran and its allies. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby announced in Washington on Sunday evening (local time) that the US military had carried out air strikes on several targets used by pro-Iranian militias in the Iraq-Syria border area. Among these facilities, Iranian-backed militias launched drone attacks on U.S. facilities in Iraq. Syria has two goals, and Iraq has one. The weapons are stored there, among other things. The Pentagon talked about necessary and appropriate defensive strikes.
Kirby The background is a series of attacks by Iran-backed groups on US targets in Iraq. President Biden ordered military action to prevent further such attacks. The United States acts in accordance with its right to self-defense. Air strikes are both “necessary to counter threats” and “appropriate in scope.” The program is designed in such a way that it limits the risk of escalation, but at the same time it clearly sends out a “deterrent message.”
Biden’s first attack in February
At the end of February, the US military had carried out air strikes in eastern Syria, a civil war country. In the process, many supporters of the pro-Iranian militia were killed. This is Biden’s first military strike since he took office. The Pentagon also rated this as a purely “defensive strike”-as an “appropriate” response to previous attacks on American soldiers and their international partners in Iraq.
A civilian contractor of the International Military Alliance was killed in a missile attack on the northern Iraqi city of Erbil in February. Many people were injured. In the past few months, there have been further attacks on Iraqi bases used by the US military.
For a long time, people have been suspicious of militia organizations that have close ties to Iran. They called on the U.S. military to withdraw from Iraq in support of the Iraqi military’s fight against the terrorist militia (IS). Iraq, as well as Syria, has developed into a conflict battlefield between the United States and Iran.
The background is about the nuclear agreement
The US airstrike comes at a time when international negotiations for the United States to return to the Iranian nuclear agreement are underway. The agreement was signed by Iran in 2015 with the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and China. Under the leadership of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and imposed large-scale sanctions on Iran. In return, Iran gradually ceased to comply with its obligations.
Negotiations on the requirements for the resumption of the nuclear agreement between the two countries have been in Vienna for several weeks. Tehran and Washington have recently talked about the progress of the negotiations. However, the US negotiators emphasized that there are still “serious differences” and no agreement has been reached: “Nothing is reached until everything is agreed.”
