US revenge attacks on Iran-backed militias spark Iran-backed militia revenge attacks on US

(Originally published Feb. 7 in “What in the World“) An Iran-backed militia launched a drone attack on a U.S. base in Syria, defying a weekend of American air strikes and killing six members of a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, the umbrella group that sparked the latest wave of U.S. retaliation, claimed responsibility for the drone strike Monday on the al-Omar oil field, which killed three members of the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Meanwhile, Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Tuesday fired missiles at two cargo ships traversing the Red Sea. The attack caused some damage to the first vessel, the Greek-owned, Marshall Islands-flagged Star Nasia, which was carrying American coal to India. The second attack caused only minor damage to the British-owned, Barbados-flagged Morning Tide, which is steaming to Singapore.

The U.S. launched dozens of strikes last weekend against Iran-backed militias in Syria, Iraq and Yemen that national security adviser Jake Sullivan said were only the start of retaliation for the drone attack in Jordan that killed three Americans. Yet the Pentagon admitted that the attacks, despite destroying 80 of their 85 targets, did little to reduce the ability of the militias to continue attacking U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria.

And in the latest incantation of the absurd, circular logic that underpins U.S. foreign policy, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj.-Gen. Patrick Ryder said that the U.S. wasn’t looking for conflict in the region, despite having stationed its troops there to kill remaining members of Islamic State. And that while the U.S. wasn’t looking for conflict, its retaliatory strikes would continue. And they will continue, he said, for as long as the militias attack U.S. fighting forces there. Was Baghdad informed before the U.S. attacks were launched? Of course not. So, it’s no surprise that Iraq now claims the U.S. is violating its sovereignty and wants to negotiate a U.S. withdrawal.

China has been relatively quiet as the war in the Middle East has expanded. The global South has largely supported Palestine despite Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Israel’s retaliatory war on Hamas in Gaza has only intensified its opposition to Israel and, by extension, its ally the United States. China has benefited by default, and so Beijing has declined to support the U.S. operation to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea from attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The Houthis have avoided attacking Chinese vessels so far. And Beijing has also been cultivating détente with Washington, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveling to Bangkok late last month to meet with Sullivan (the true architect of American foreign policy).

Lest readers forget its own long-running campaign to stoke tensions between Washington and Beijing, however, the New York Times has weighed in with a strangely off-topic re-hash of Beijing’s nuclear ambitions. Dredging up a 2021 paper by a researcher at China’s National Defense University, the Times has resuscitated the Pentagon’s warnings from 2022 that China has, under President Xi Jinping, moved to triple its nuclear arsenal by 2035 as a strategic deterrent against attack and as a potential source of leverage abroad against the likes of Taiwan.

Veiled nuclear threats? Why what civilized nation that values human rights and freedom would ever use those? China would, if it meets Xi’s goals, have roughly 1,500 warheads. The U.S. has more than 5,400 and is busily updating those.

And, oh yeah, Ukraine is still at war with Russia’s invading forces, and faces an increasingly desperate shortage of artillery that has forced it to give up hopes of pushing the Russians out. Instead, it is simply trying to hold the line.

The shortage is mainly in 155mm artillery shells used by members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization across a variety of guns, in particular howitzer cannons. The U.S. Army aims to invest $3.1 billion to boost American production capacity to 100,000 shells a month from 14,400 before Russia invaded Ukraine.

But the Army is also running into a shortage of explosives. Each 155mm shell contains roughly 10kg of explosive material and the Army estimates the U.S. will need 12 million kilograms of explosives a month to reach its production goal.