Sao Paulo
To attack or not to attack Iran? The issue has moved from the desks of military planners and think tank futurists to the center of America's election debate, and that's bad news for President Joe Biden.
The reason is the campaign by Tehranallied forces in the Middle East against American bases in the region, where Washington has just over 30,000 of its 170,000 soldiers stationed abroad.
The first death of US soldiers in an attack that left dozens injured in Jordan on Saturday (27) caused the politicization around the crisis to explode exponentially increasing the risk of a wider conflagration and pitting the superpower against its biggest rival in the Region, which allowed theocrats to take over the regime of the Ayatollahs.
It was a matter of time. The American forces in Iraq (around 2,500 soldiers) and Syria (around 900), which are stationed in isolated bases, are particularly at risk. They are easy targets that have so far relied on the lack of accuracy of the drones and mortars of the numerous Iranlinked groups in both countries and their defense systems.
But such instruments have limits, as the weekend showed. The Republican opposition, eyeing Donald Trump's rising chances of resuming the presidency in the polls, went for Biden's jugular, accusing him of leaving his armed forces defenseless against insurgents of all kinds.
Biden's strategists must now consider the wisdom of putting all of America's military weight behind Israel's defense after the October 7 Hamas attack.
By deploying two aircraft carrier groups, one of which has already been sent back to the United States, and announcing reinforcements at its bases, including 900 troops, the United States was initially able to convince Iran and its most powerful ally, the Lebanese Hezbollah, not to support it to reinforce. to the Palestinians for open war in the region.
But that could change. Iran's alleged calculation is that a conflict will destroy the country's economy and threaten the regime's already shaky stability. In circles around Tehran, an alternative reading has emerged in recent weeks that fits the current scenario.
According to this view, shared by some diplomats and analysts, radicals in Tehran believe that Biden would not have the courage to go to war against Iran, which would be particularly dangerous for exposed US bases and naval forces in the Persian Gulf , and at best targeted punitive attacks would be used.
According to this version, these would be somewhat absorbed by Iran, putting Tehran in a position of strength and renewing the government's muscle. Iran's dangerous attacks on rivals in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan, as well as its allies' constant actions against American forces, provide theoretical support for this argument.
Whatever the Iranian intention, the practical effect is to force Biden to walk on an uncomfortable knife edge. Since attacks cannot go unpunished, which is also electoral poison, they have so far responded in the same way, always targeting the nominal source of the acts even as they named names and accused Iran of sponsoring them.
But the delay so far in responding to Saturday's serious incident and reports leaked to the American press suggest that the debate is heated. Even a limited attack on Iran, with which the US says it does not want to go to war, could have unpredictable consequences.
There are too many bare wires in the region, which with its oil and gas fields is vital to the global economy. Biden also denies being at war with the Houthis in Yemen, but bombs the country when it suits him. What happens if a rebel antiship missile manages to penetrate American defenses and severely hit a destroyer in the Red Sea?
Again, this is about the scale of the war in Gaza, and it is clear that Biden has limited resources to deal with Benjamin Netanyahu. Here lies another knife for the president, with conflicting pressures coming from both the influential American Jewish community and the Democratic left.