The January 27 drone attack on “Tower 22,” a U.S. base in Jordan along the Syria border, by Iran’s Iraqi militia proxies marks a turning point in Tehran’s slowly escalating war on the United States, and not just because three U.S. servicemen died.
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria have launched nearly 160 attacks on Washington’s roughly 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in neighboring northeastern Syria since beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October, most of them small-scale operations designed to probe their readiness and test U.S. resolve. The attack on Tower 22, a logistical support hub for the nearby U.S. garrison at Al-Tanf, Syria, suggests that Iran is contemplating a major campaign to cut off and eliminate the tiny American military presence, which plays an outsized role in curbing the Islamic Republic’s regional expansion.
For more on the array of Iran’s militia proxies likely to participate in such a campaign, see the selections at right from MEF staff, writing fellows, and guest contributors.
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