Deadly Drone Strike in Jordan Makes Things ‘Different’ for the U.S.

EXPERT INTERVIEW: The White House said Monday that the situation in the Middle East is “different” after a deadly strike that killed three U.S. Service members in Jordan over the weekend. 

“We have three families that just got the worst possible news,” White House Spokesman John Kirby told reporters from the White House podium on Monday.  “That’s different.”

As the President considers his options for response, some members of Congress are calling for retaliatory attacks inside Iran, as Tehran denies responsibility.

The Cipher Brief spoke with former senior CIA Officers Ralph Goff and Glenn Corn – both with extensive experience in the Middle East – about retaliation, deterrence and why it’s critical that both parties in Congress come together to address Iran’s continued backing of proxy groups targeting the U.S. presence in the region.

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The Cipher Brief:  You have extensive experience in dealing with Iran’s provocations in the Middle East.  What makes the weekend’s deadly drone strike different?

Goff: The newest wrinkle in this attack over the weekend is that this happened in Jordanian territory against the US presence in Jordan.  It’s one thing for the Iranian backed Shia militias in Iraq to hit our forces in Iraq where the Shia call it an occupation force. Our presence in Jordan is not an occupation. So, this is pure, blatant aggression and it demands a response. I’m waiting to see what King Abdullah will do about this. This happened in his territory as well.

He can sometimes be hesitant to act in situations like this. Other times he jumps right in. He lost a plane and a pilot attacking ISIS a few years ago, and there have been reports of Jordanian airstrikes in neighboring Syria against drug traffickers. One of the big concerns for the Jordanian government is that there is a CAPTA gun drug trade that seems to be controlled by Syrian gangs coming into Jordan. So, there is precedent for Jordan to take action here. They are a fairly stalwart ally of the United States, and frankly, I would expect to see them put some skin in the game as well. Although they can always say, “Well, it wasn’t an attack on us, it was an American base. We just guard the perimeter.” I’ll be curious to see how he plays this in the coming days.

Corn:  Many people expected something like this, unfortunately, and it’s a terrible news. It obviously is going to ratchet up pressure on the president to do something. He said he will do something in response. We’re all waiting to see what that is. But this reinforces the belief of many that have followed the region for a long time, that we cannot allow the Iranians, regardless of their claim that they were not responsible for this, to get away with targeting Americans. Everyone has been worried in the administration about escalation, and many have been saying that it’s the Iranians that are escalating and we cannot allow them to keep escalating. So I hope that the US response is very harsh and it sends a very strong message to the Iranians and to their allies that we will not tolerate the targeting of the US or our allies in the region any longer because if we continue not to respond decisively, we are going to lose a lot of those allies.

The Cipher Brief:  General Frank McKenzie (Ret.) told The Cipher Brief during a briefing for subscribers last week, that in previous attacks, the US response against Iranian-backed groups was often too little, too late. It was over-signaled and it was – in a sense – divorced from the tactical realities on the ground.

There’s been talk of sinking the IRGC operated ship that is in the region and thought to be directing a lot of the Houthi attacks, and there’s talk of targeting Tehran directly while most analysts say that would be a red line.

Corn:  Targeting the proxies isn’t working. The Iranians use those proxies for a reason. They provide a layer of defense for Iran itself, and they’re using them and when we go after them, it’s not sending the message to Iran that we need to send. Personally, I believe that we should go after some of the production facilities in Iran that are being used to supply the proxies, and also – by the way – the Russians in their war against Ukraine. So why don’t we look for a efficiency and send the Iranian regime a very strong message that we’ve had enough and that we’re not going to tolerate it.

I know some people believe that that is a red line for the Iranians but we’ve already crossed that red line. The Iranians are using their axis of resistance to try and push us out of the region, and they are waging a war against the United States. We’re at war and we have to accept that. The only way to wage war is to take the initiative and not let the enemy continue to take the initiative.

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Goff: US forces right now are at the mercy of not just what the Iranian decision makers are planning, but also what Israel’s planning. This all revolves around Gaza. All of this escalation circles back to what’s happening in Gaza. So, we’re being held hostage by what Israel’s doing in Gaza. We’re being held hostage by what Iran is doing to us in the north with Hezbollah, what they’re doing down in the Red Sea. I mean, Tehran said, ‘Look, the attacks in the Red Sea will cease once the genocide in Gaza stops,’ so they’ve been pretty clear about that.

Regarding the Iranian ship that seemed to be some sort of command and control for the Houthis and Red Sea, I can’t believe we can’t find a way to neutralize that ship without kinetically attacking it, electronic warfare, jamming, maybe taking out the rudder or something like that. There are things that could be done that could sideline that ship until the Iranians are done messing around in the Red Sea but it would take some action.

We are at war here. I just don’t think either side has defined what that war is. Tehran hasn’t defined it. The Israelis haven’t completely defined what their war is with Hamas and we certainly have not defined what our war is with all the various proxies and then with Iran as a part of that.

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The president is in an election year. He’s got to make some tough calls. He has people in Congress on both sides of the aisle who get upset when he takes military action without consulting Congress.

The president has to look at his options for response and then he’s going to have to make a decision to send a really hard message. The problem with messaging today is the message that you send is not always the message that the other side receives. So, there is a lot of stuff swirling around and frankly, the administration doesn’t have a lot of time to deal with this. They’ve got to come up with a strategy and it’s got to be soon.

The Cipher Brief:  General Phil Breedlove (Ret.) over a year ago, told The Cipher Brief, “We are deterred. Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has us deterred in Ukraine.” Play that forward now in the Red Sea, into the Israel Gaza War, many Cipher Brief Expert have said that U.S. efforts at deterrence are certainly not working. How do you feel about the the role of US deterrence in today’s world?

Corn:  Whatever policy of deterrence we’ve tried to pursue is not working in the case of Iran, and of course it didn’t work with Russia. I would agree that they are deterring us. They are intimidating the United States not to take action. As Ralph said, the president is in a very difficult position for a number of reasons. But one thing I think we shouldn’t forget, is that there are a lot of people in Iran waiting for the United States to do something and looking for some leadership. The regime in Iran is not very popular, and I sometimes think that people in Washington may be more worried – like we heard in the case of Russia – that if something happens to destabilize the regime, there will be chaos in Iran because the people will take to the streets.

That may be one concern that people have but I would say that the United States needs to show the type of courage that many people look for in the United States.  I’ll give you an example. If you look to our Western hemisphere, which people don’t pay a lot of attention to, the Venezuelans are backtracking. Madura is backtracking on agreements he had with the US government to allow elections there. So, what are we going to do? We seem to see this all over the world. Countries are not respecting agreements. They are crossing our red lines and there’s no response, and then we are worried about crossing their red lines. It can’t be that way.

Goff: Deterrence begins at home. If you don’t have political will, if you don’t have political unity, if you don’t have a clear political voice on where you stand, how can you have credible deterrence? And this is where Congress, both sides of the aisle, rather than just pushing one agenda or the other and attacking the administration, they need to work with the administration. They need to stand behind them. They need to look at the fact that we’ve lost three troops over the weekend. A couple dozen of our military personnel are suffering from traumatic brain injuries, symptoms from the explosions. They’re the victims. So you don’t have to like the president, you don’t have to like the National Security Council, but you’ve got to unify to give them an opportunity to develop a strategy that can lead to credible deterrence. Deterrence begins at home.

The Cipher Brief’s Brad Christian contributed to this report

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