UPDATE: Are Iran and the United States conducting secret, backdoor negotiations?
UPDATE: At 4 pm (EST) the U.S. targeted Iran-backed facilities in Iraq and Syria. Not targeted was anything in Iran. The question is whether the action was aggressive enough to deter Iran.
How else do you explain the United States’ abject failure to respond rapidly to the drone attack that killed three American soldiers?
Military experts have been saying for days that immediacy is an import part of “sending a message” to Iran that we won’t put up with attacks on America and our military.
It would be just like Biden (or his hard-left handlers) to think that they can negotiate their way out of this. Didn’t they think that they try to negotiation with Iran to give up their nuclear bomb ambitions? This is the scariest option.
Maybe the Biden administration, by delaying action, is messing with the minds of the Iranian mullahs. They’re sitting there, waiting for an attack that they don’t know where or when it will occur. Like waiting for the next shoe to drop? Making them nervous. Exhausting Iran’s military as they wait and wait. As a former Navy officer, I know that waiting around for whatever might happen is truly exhausting. Even it if is not life-threatening. One tends to let down one’s guard the longer you have to wait, wait, wait.
Maybe I’m giving President Joe Biden too much credit. He has the final say and maybe he just can’t make up his mind. Or maybe his “advisors” have persuaded him that any response will escalate into another world war. Wait long enough, they might say, and everything will cool off. The status quo is preferable.
Except for this: The status quo has proved deadly. With daily missile or drone attacks—yes it is daily—more death and mauling of Americans is almost certain.
It’s not fair—no, it’s criminal—to make soldiers and sailors to be sitting ducks, playing defense and hoping that nothing will get through their defenses. Keeping in mind that a Houthi anti-ship missile got close enough to force the Navy destroyer Gravely to use its last defense against an attack.
It’s called the Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS)—a rapid-fire, computer-controlled, radar-guided gun system designed to defeat anti-ship missiles and other near-by threats that have eluded other lines of defense. In simple terms, it creates of wall of bullets that an incoming threat can’t avoid.
If I were on that ship or in any of the land-based U.S. encampments I and suspect every crew member would be more than pissed that they are only allowed to play defense. As in a tennis match in which only the opponent is allowed to serve.
Perhaps as I write this, the retaliation strikes already have begun. But the above observations still matter. I hope so. But I’m not counting on it.
Dennis Byrne is a retired Chicago journalist, author and freelance writer. Email: dennis@dennisbyrne.net
this administration will stab Israel in the back just like Obama did