My Civic Issue Blog will be about United States’ foreign policy. I will be looking at both current, present day situations and past examples and perceptions of who the United States is in the world. I grew up loving politics, history, and proud of our country, so these will be values and experiences that I will include in my commentary.
Today, we will be looking at the recent tensions between the United States and Iran. Last weekend, a military group backed by Iran launched a drone strike at a US military outpost. This strike killed three and injured over 40 others. When I first heard this news, it was shocking. It had been a decent bit since I had heard of any number of United States soldiers being killed by an enemy. The United States and the Biden administration planned out a retaliation attack throughout the week, and it was successfully carried out on Friday, 2/2. This attack struck 85 targets with no report yet on causalities. We continued our response Saturday, 2/3, attacking 36 Houthi targets in Yemen with the aid of the United Kingdom. In both these cases, the attacks were done with bombs, missiles, drone strikes.
Due to the Israel Palestine conflict, the United States had brought in some forces to protect its interests in Israel and also to prevent these Islamic groups from joining in the conflict and spurring something bigger. Instead of joining the conflict, these Islamic groups have decided to make attacks directly on US forces and our allies interests. Houthi has attacked various British interests, thus leading the United Kingdom to join in the United States’ retaliation.
I think that we are in a difficult spot in the Middle East. The area itself isn’t controlled by the governments in power, but rather by militias and military groups which the United States would identify as terrorist groups. To be frank, the Middle East hasn’t been at peace since the Ottoman Empire. Legislating in the area is almost impossible due to the rivalry between Sunnis and Shias within the Islamic religion. Due to the vast amount of wealth and natural resources in the area, large countries have to pay attention to and be involved in the area.
We always protect our allies, but when our soldiers get hurt in a conflict we truly don’t have to be in, there is always questioning of decisions. I think that due to the attacks and loss of life, the United States needed to retaliate in some way and prove that it wasn’t just going to stand by and take a slap to the face. But at the same time, there is a grave risk of this conflict spreading, as we have already see it do so just within the Middle East. Luckily, no other powerful foreign adversary has “joined” in support of the various terrorist groups at this moment. If one does, the conflict is sure to change. My personal biggest fear comes from within our own boarders. Our country is divided on who the enemy is in the original conflict between Israel and Palestine, and I think even members of our government are. In all other conflicts, it has been a clear enemy, and thus I am extremely concerned if this conflict escalates which side the United States would end up on and who our citizens would support and thus how committed they would be to the fight and to the United States.
I completely agree with your last few statements. This country is extremely polarized in political standpoints as well as when it comes to finding common ground on who the common enemy is. It’s definitely concerning to know what might come out of this and what the United States will be like in the duration of these conflicts. It honestly is also very upsetting that such things still happen to this day.
I love posts like this because I feel like many people just form their opinions on political issues just based on what they hear from other people or from social media, without having a significant amount of research on the topic. This will definitely help me to form a proper opinion that’s not just what’s popular!