Iran's long war with the United States began with the 1979 Revolution when the tyrannical clerics declared their goal was destruction of the United States. The regime refers to the United States as "the big satan" and unites its followers to the chants of "death to America. In 1983 an Iranian-government backed terrorist launched a huge bombing attack which murdered 241 marines in Beirut on a peacekeeping mission. The Iranian government aided and abetted al Qaeda's 9/11 attack on the American homeland and is currently providing a safe haven to al Qaeda's leaders in Iran. The regime is also responsible for the murdering and maiming of hundreds of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. On March 28, 2023 Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's testified before Congress that Iran and its proxy forces launched 83 attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since President Joe Biden took office.
STOP IRAN NOW / Wall Street Journal
October 25, 2023
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Tuesday that Washington would react “swiftly and decisively” if Iran or its proxy forces attack U.S. personnel after Tehran raised the risk of a larger Middle East conflict in recent days by unleashing the regional militias it has spent years arming.
For more than six months, these Iranian-backed militia groups refrained from launching drones or rockets against American troops in Iraq and Syria, as part of what appeared to be an undeclared truce between Tehran and Washington.
That came to an abrupt end when U.S. officials said that Iran-backed groups launched 10 drone and rocket attacks against bases that U.S. troops use in Iraq and another three on a U.S. base in southeast Syria.
The attacks were carried out between Oct. 17 and Oct. 24. In one of the attacks at al-Asad air base in Iraq last week, U.S. troops shot a militia group’s drone out of the sky, where it fell atop of an American drone and destroyed it, U.S. military officials said.
In Yemen, the Iranian-backed Houthis also fired five Iranian-provided cruise missiles and launched about 30 drones toward Israel in an attack that was larger than initially described by the Pentagon, U.S. officials said.
Last week, the USS Carney guided missile destroyer, which was operating in the northern Red Sea, shot down four of the cruise missiles while a fifth cruise missile was intercepted by Saudi Arabia as it protected its airspace, according to people familiar with the episode. Those cruise missiles have a range of more than 2,000 kilometers (about 1,240 miles), the Pentagon said Tuesday, which would enable them to reach targets in Israel.
Amid the surge of attacks on U.S. forces, the Pentagon deployed nearly a dozen air defense systems to countries across the Middle East ahead of Israel’s expected land invasion of Gaza, moving missile launchers to Iraq, Syria and the Gulf, U.S. officials said.
The Pentagon is sending a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, to Saudi Arabia, and Patriot surface-to-air missile systems to Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The systems are expected to be in place later this week, the officials said.
Military bases at al-Udeid in Qatar, Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, and the al-Dhafra base in the United Arab Emirates are all getting air defense systems, military officials said.
The additional forces mark a shift in how the U.S. is deploying in the region. The U.S. had previously sent military assets to deter attacks on Israel from the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, but this week, the U.S. focus is on threats to American troops throughout the Middle East.
“The United States does not seek conflict with Iran; we do not want this war to widen,” Blinken said Tuesday at a tense United Nations meeting. “But if Iran or its proxies attack U.S. personnel anywhere, make no mistake, we will defend our people, we will defend our security, swiftly and decisively.”
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