US and Israel gird for Iran’s reprisal as Ukraine invades Russia

(Originally published Aug. 13 in “What in the World“) The U.S. is sending a nuclear-powered, guided-missile submarine to the Middle East in hopes or warding off an Iranian attack against Israel.

The USS Georgia joins the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier group there as the Pentagon bolsters its presence ahead of an expected Iranian reprisal for Israel’s assassination late last month of Hamas’ political leader in Tehran. After warning last week that an attack could come within 24 hours, the White House said Monday it could come within a week. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group is also speeding to the Middle East from the Pacific, where it will relieve the Roosevelt.

Israeli forces have been put on high alert after spotting Iran and its proxy in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah, preparing for attacks, The Wall Street Journal said, citing one unnamed source.

Even as they fend off attacks by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, U.S. forces there still continue to battle their common enemy, resurgent cells of Islamic State. The U.S. has conducted three air strikes against IS fighters this year, according to the Journal, after four last year. That’s minuscule compared with the air strikes they’ve launched in retaliation against the hundreds of attacks by the self-styled “Axis of Resistance” since last October when war erupted in Gaza. In just one such strike back in February, U.S. aircraft hit 85 separate targets in seven locations in Iraq and Syria.

The roving rocket launcher made famous on the battlefields of Ukraine has a new fan: Norway.

NATO’s founding Nordic member will spend $580 million buying 16 M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or Himars. Regular readers will recall that U.S. Pres. Joe Biden initially refused to let Ukraine have Himars, then reversed himself in May 2022 and even wrote an op-ed explaining his decision to the American public.

The Himars gave Ukrainian forces the longer range they needed to knock out Russian logistical centers behind the lines, breaking the stalemate and resulting in September’s liberation of Kherson and the surprise advance in Kharkiv. But the Pentagon rigged them so they wouldn’t fire even longer-range Atacm missiles. Biden has since allowed Ukraine to have Atacms, but Russian forces have since learned how to jam the GPS signals the Himars use for targeting.

When he reversed his Himars decision, Biden explained in an op-ed published in The New York Times that the U.S. wasn’t “encouraging or enabling” Ukraine to attack beyond its borders. But that’s exactly what it’s doing now: Ukrainian forces last week launched an incursion as far as 20km into the neighboring Russian province of Kursk. The move has baffled military strategists who say it diverts resources from holding the line against Russians inside Ukraine. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky justified the attack Sunday by explaining that Russia had launched roughly 2,000 strikes into Ukraine’s Sumy province from Kursk.

It was after Russia began amassing forces across the border with Sumy back in May that Biden reversed his restriction against Ukraine using U.S. weapons against targets inside Russia. Initially, Biden stipulated that they only be used to hit Russian forces preparing for the Sumy offensive. Less than a month later in June, the White House lifted that restriction, too, saying Ukraine could use U.S. weapons against Russia with only one remaining exception: it couldn’t use the long-range Atacms there. Zelensky has since been lobbying unsuccessfully for Biden to reverse that.

And so far, there’s been no mention of Ukraine using U.S. weapons (other than Bradley fighting vehicles) in the Kursk incursion. Instead, it seems to be relying on home-made drones for close air support.