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Thomas Friedman
By Thomas L. Friedman
Op-ed columnist reporting from the U. S. garrison of Al Tanf in southern Syria.
The most damaging point in the world is said to be the waterway between Taiwan and mainland China, where the Chinese military and air force flex their muscles every day in an attempt to intimidate Taiwan, while the U. S. Navy is trying to intimidate Taiwan. U. S. Coast Guard patrols nearby. I wonder. Lately, there has been a strong balance of deterrence. Maybe they’ll host a friendly regatta in the Taiwan Strait compared to the place I just visited.
Last week, I spent two days playing hopscotch in a CH-47 Chinook helicopter between seven U. S. Army bases in western Jordan and eastern Syria with Centcom’s senior commander for the Middle East, Gen. Michael Kurilla. The war in the Middle East began shortly after the tragic war between Israel and Hamas that erupted on October 7.
This other war in the Middle East pits Iran and its proxies against each other: the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Shiite militias in Iraq who oppose the small network of U. S. bases in Syria, Jordan, and Iraq established after 2014 to destroy the Islamic State’s Islamic State and the U. S. naval presence in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which helps keep important shipping lanes open.
These Shiite militias armed with Iran in Iraq and Houthi fighters in Yemen probably don’t seem like fatal threats, but make no mistake. They learned how to weaponize, build, adapt, and deploy some of the world’s most complex precision weapons. Provided through Iran, it can hit a meter-wide target at a distance of 500 miles.
The young U. S. infantrymen and sailors deployed in front of them got their start in video games, but now they find themselves gambling in the real thing, deploying with software and cursors the world’s most complicated countermeasures and interceptors to slow down almost every rocket and drone they launch. Iranian representatives have used them. Throw them outdoors.
In short, Americans may not know that they are at war with Iran, but the Iranian Revolutionary Guards know for sure that they are engaged in a shadow war with the United States through their proxies.
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