Attack in Jordan and America’s War

Little more than 48 hours after returning home to Amman following two weeks in the West Bank and Israel and as I was pouring over my bursting-at-the-seams reporter’s notebook, news broke that a military strike had killed three American soldiers on Jordanian soil.

I immediately recalled a phrase I heard days earlier in the Tulkarim refugee camp and across the West Bank: "this is America's war."

The Israel-Hamas war is a conflict that began with a massacre carried out by non-state militant movement Hamas on Israelis and the subsequent punishing Israeli military offensive and siege across Gaza, but today it has evolved into something more.

Rightly or wrongly, the conflict is increasingly being seen by peoples across the Middle East as America’s war, one putting the United States on a collision course with Iran.

American guns, American missiles, American vetoes, and American rejection of a permanent ceasefire has made it clear, in Palestinians' minds, that they are facing the full brunt of not only Israel, but of the American government and its military.

Having Iran and Hezbollah on the other side is inspiring little enthusiasm among Palestinians who see Tehran as using their struggle for self-determination and their towns and villages as an arena to settle old scores.

Arab states are frustrated with America’s insistence on continuing the war and have also concluded it is Washington, not Jerusalem, that is dictating the pace and shape of the conflict.

With Sunday’s strikes it is clear that Iranian proxies believe that America—and not Israel—should be held accountable for Israeli assassinations and strikes in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq and for prolonging the war in Gaza.  

The threat of conflagration is unravelling two years of efforts by Gulf states to usher in a new era of cooperation, reconciliation and rapprochement among Arab states, Iran, Turkey—and yes, Israel.

Arab Gulf states have been working tirelessly behind the scenes the last three months to tamp down tensions and prevent a wider war between Israel and Hezbollah and Iranian proxies that could draw in America and its allies.

Yet with incidents like Sunday’s drone-attack on Jordan, the US is stumbling into an American-Iranian war at a startling speed—and taking the region with it.

American force without foresight and diplomatic initiatives drawn up on the fly have produced limited results more than 100 days into this Israel-Hamas war.

American military deterrence has failed to uproot Hamas or make northern and southern Israel safe for thousands of families to return.

American diplomacy has not eased the suffering or slowed the killing of Palestinians in Gaza, who continue to face famine and missile-strikes. Despite all the talk and leaks to the press, a political solution to the conflict and statehood for Palestinians is just as distant today as it was on October 6.

The Biden Administration’s pressure has done little to protect West Bank Palestinians—including American citizens—who have been terrorized, beaten and killed by extremist Israeli settlers and the Israeli army. The killing of an American Palestinian teenager by a settler the day I stepped foot in the West Bank hit this fact home.

America has also done little to alleviate the pressure on Israel’s neighbours and peace-treaty holders Egypt and Jordan, who continue to face the anger of their publics, as part of a wave of frustration over peace treaties they see as having signed away their sovereignty and leaving them helpless to stop the war in Gaza.

America’s military footprint in Syria and Iraq without strategic objectives continues to leave American lives exposed to Iranian retribution for Israel’s assassinations of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah commanders without any tangible gains.

The American naval response to brazen Houthi attacks is heating up a once-quiet conflict in the Red Sea, threatening to reopen a Yemen war that not only threatens the stability and security of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but shipping worldwide.

And now drones fired by Iranian-backed militias are hitting Jordan.

From where I stand in Jordan, and from where I have stood across the Middle East the past three months, American policy is making the region less safe, not more.

Rather than doubling down on tit-for-tat military strikes and post-Cold War strategies, in order to prevent the war that nobody wants, America needs a new approach in the Middle East.

What is needed is a broader Middle East policy built on collaboration and not competition, principles not pivots, clarity not campaign slogans, strategic long-term planning not ad-hoc coalitions over the priorities of the day, active planning not reactive strikes, and a willingness to shape the future rather than be held hostage to the past and bound by the present.  

To prevent the United States from getting mired once again in the region, American policymakers must find the will and the courage to address the root causes of violence—unresolved conflicts across the region—rather than treat the inevitable symptoms that violently erupt from collapsed states and oppressed peoples.

If we cannot choose new ideas and policies through the ballot box, then it is time to elevate voices advocating fresh ideas in the American policy word and media.

Two decades on since the Iraq War, I see America making the same mistakes, with some of the same faces, same names and same rhetoric.

Doing different things and expecting different results is rational; doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is American Mideast policy.

If we want to avoid another American war in the region, now is the time for change.

The views and opinions expressed in this piece are solely that of the author and do not reflect the views or positions of any organizations or institutions he may be affiliated with.