February 2, 2024 HEATHER COX RICHARDSON FEB 3 https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/february-2-2024?r=1izlr0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

 

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February 2, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 3

 

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It’s been quite a long week for me, but I want to make sure we have a record of the U.S. military’s strike today on more than 85 targets at four facilities in Syria and three in Iraq used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp—which is the paramilitary organization organized in 1979 to protect the Islamic regime—and the militant groups it sponsors. 

The U.S. was responding to the attacks on U.S. troops and facilities in Iraq and Syria and the attack on Sunday that killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded more than 40 in Jordan.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters tonight that the “targets were carefully selected to avoid civilian casualties and based on clear, irrefutable evidence that they were connected to attacks on U.S. personnel in the region.” They included command and control centers; headquarters buildings; rocket, missile, and drone storage facilities; and so on. Kirby expressed strong confidence that the strikes were successful.

Kirby reiterated that the U.S. does not want conflict with Iran. It chose the targets “to degrade and disrupt the capabilities” of the groups that have been attacking U.S. troops. When asked what signal the administration was trying to send, Kirby said: “The signal is: The attacks have to stop. The attacks have to stop.”

But, he added, the strikes weren’t just a message. “This was about degrading capability; taking away, in a more robust way than we have in the past—taking away capabilities by the IRGC and the militant groups.”

Kirby was clear that there will be additional responses to the attacks on U.S. troops. He also explained how military strikes could be part of a policy of trying to avoid a broader conflict, saying that by taking away an adversary’s capability to kill your troops, “you are by default working to deescalate the tensions. And that’s the approach we’re taking,” he said.

In the past few days, the administration has sought to cut off funding for the IRGC and the groups it supports by placing additional economic sanctions on IRGC officers and officials and by charging nine people with selling Iran’s oil to finance Hamas and Hezbollah. 

“The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.”

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Notes:

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/irans-revolutionary-guards

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3659809/3-us-service-members-killed-others-injured-in-jordan-following-drone-attack/

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2065

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/us/politics/us-iran-sanctions-charges.html

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/02/02/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-u-s-military-operation-in-the-middle-east/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2024/02/02/on-the-record-press-call-on-u-s-military-operations-in-the-middle-east/

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