Officials in Washington will be having “complicated discussions” about how to respond to a drone attack that killed three US personnel in Jordan, a Middle East and security analyst has said.
Jonathan Paris told Sky News that any US response must be strong enough to deter Iran and its proxies – which Joe Biden has blamed for the attack.
Mr Paris noted, for example, that US strikes on the Houthis in Yemen had not stopped the rebels attacking ships.
“The US sort of responds tit-for-tat, not enough to deter Iran [or] to make it so painful that the Iranians will think twice before they order these proxies to do another attack,” he said.
“For Iran, it’s like: ‘Let’s escalate, because we don’t really suffer any pain in our country – the pain is always suffered by the proxies.’”
Mr Paris said senior decision-makers in the Biden administration will be suggesting that the policy of “very limited response” is “simply not deterring the Iranians”.
He said they would be thinking: “If we really want to avoid getting dragged into another war, maybe it’s time to attack some Iranian assets.”
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