Even if the conflict between the United States and Iran threatens to escalate Once again, diplomatic talks are breaking down, with US and Israeli officials flirt again with the idea of pushing for regime change, President Donald Trump is still widely reported reluctance to send US ground forces inside Iran. That would risk causing massive American casualties and pushing a war that many Americans have largely planned for, even if they oppose, back into the center of public debate.
But that, sadly, doesn’t mean that American soldiers involved in the conflict are necessarily safe. The past few days have been the worst for US forces since the ceasefire went into effect in April. On Friday, two American soldiers were killed in a missile attack at the Jordan camp, being the second time in two days that Iranian missiles were able to hit the camp. On Saturday, a third US soldier was killed in Iraq during an attempt to shoot down a downed Iranian drone. At least 17 US soldiers have been killed since the start of Operation Epic Fury in February.
The United States escalated its attacks on Iran in retaliation, including an attack on the missile base in Tabriz, Iran, where the Jordanian attack is believed to have originated. Iran has also fired missiles and drones at targets in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar in recent days, capturing many, as well as several commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, where traffic is again at a near standstill.
If Iran’s ability to close the strait has been the biggest surprise of this war, its ability to hold targets throughout the vulnerable region, including energy infrastructure and US military bases, with missiles and drones, may be second.
This shows the danger to the US military and US allies from retaliation by Iran can only increase, as this conflict continues, even if Trump does not commit to “boots on the ground.” The president has wanted to portray this as a war where the risk of death and destruction is borne by only one side, and Iran has certainly suffered more damage. But there have already been several surprises in this war and the danger to the US military may be greater than expected a few months ago.
The growing threat to US troops in the Middle East
In the first days of the war, the army he began to move the troops and equipment from bases in Persian Gulf countries such as Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar further west of Jordan and Israel, where they face fewer internal obstacles and where they stay farther from Iranian missile launchers. Satellite images and the following information has has been revealed that Iranian attacks did more damage to these facilities during the first phase of the war than was revealed at the time.
The more distant US bases may be harder to hit, but they are clearly still within range of Iran’s missiles and Shahed drones. Other analysts also say the changes may have created new vulnerabilities by targeting US personnel and equipment in limited areas.
The missile attack that killed Lt. Tyler James Feehan and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales on Friday was one of four Iranian attacks on Jordanian facilities in just five days. The Iranians actually seem to be hitting Jordan more than Israel in recent days, which may be because these targets are less well-protected than Israeli bases or because they pose less risk of escalation: Israeli leaders, unlike Trump, are eager to rejoin the war.
American officials suggested to the Wall Street Journal that Iran is adapting to US air defenses by “launching missiles that travel at high speeds and can move as they hover over the earth,” making them difficult to intercept. The officials also suggested that the Iranians may be receiving targeting assistance from China or Russia.
Or it could just be that if the Iranians can continue to fire missiles and drones, no system will be able to provide complete protection.
“What it shows is that Iran is in much better shape than it was supposed to be,” said Nicole Grajewski, an expert on Iran’s missile program and a professor at Sciences Po in Paris. “Contrary to a lot of American statements from the early stages of the war, Iran still has a significant missile and drone capability, and because they are currently inoperable under constant airstrikes, they may have been able to rebuild part of it.”
Based on the assessment it was reported in JuneIran still has access to most of its missiles and about 70 percent of its pre-war stockpile.
And while Iran still packs a punch, there are growing questions about whether U.S. air defense capabilities are declining. During the April ceasefire, Center for Strategic and International Studies Estimated, the United States was likely to burn more than 1,000 of its stockpile of approximately 2,300 Patriot receivers, and between 50-80 percent of the advanced THAAD receivers, designed for use against high-altitude, long-range ballistic missiles.
The Pentagon has been pushing for protection producers to increase production speed and bring down the costs of high-end receivers, but that will take months if not more, depending on the system. In the short term, the lack of missile defense will continue to be a source of stress if this conflict escalates.
“We don’t have (enough weapons) to carry out operations safely, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” a US official told the Washington Post this week.
The US no longer dominates the skies like it once did
US troops in the Middle East have long been vulnerable to missile attacks. One especially Iraq’s famous Scud missile The strike killed 27 US soldiers during the first Gulf War in 1991.
But the rise of one-way drones like Iran’s Shahed have shifted the balance, giving weaker adversaries the ability to target American bases at low cost. The attack that killed the two soldiers on Friday was, like many of Iran’s attacks in this war, a combination of missile and drone strikes intended to disable the base’s defenses. The best-case scenario from these attacks, from the US perspective, is that they are prevented, albeit at the cost of removing critical air defense resources. In the worst case scenario, American soldiers are killed.
A call another base in Jordan at the beginning of 2024 by the Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, during the war in Gaza, which killed three US soldiers was in some way a warning of the dangers that US soldiers would face in a situation where Iran itself targeted them with its full power. Since at least the Korean War, the US military has been accustomed to fighting with absolute control of the airspace. Until 2022, General Frank McKenzie, commander of US forces in the Middle East, he warned that “air quality is something we no longer have all the time” due to the proliferation of low-cost drones, which he compared to improvised explosive devices, many planted by Iranian allies, that killed hundreds of American soldiers during the war in Iraq.
Fortunately, America’s casualties in this war are still nowhere near those of the Iraq war. Trump told reporters on Sunday that “We feel very bad” about the deaths but that “those great patriots were out there fighting to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon.” In recent weeks, the main focus of the war has been control of the Strait of Hormuz, rather than Iran’s nuclear program.
The hard logic is that as well as the high price of oil and the decrease in the number of votes they are still not enough to prevent Trump from going to war with Iran, a few American casualties are not enough to deter military action. In fact, as this weekend’s retaliatory attacks on Tabriz showed, it can only draw the United States further into the war.
As long as Trump avoids a ground invasion, Iran’s ability to target and kill US troops will remain limited. But as the events of the past weekend showed, that potential exists, and there is only so much the United States can do to stop it. The risk of an even bigger catastrophe for American troops in the Middle East will only grow as this war continues.
