American messages of deterrence to Iran

Since the negotiations to revive the nuclear agreement in Vienna between Iran and the West stalled and reached a dead end, according to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in mid-September 2022, the imposition of sanctions against Iran, its arms or affiliated companies abroad has continued, as well as the strikes against the Iranian drones spread throughout the countries of the region.

On February 15, US forces shot down an Iranian drone that it said was conducting reconnaissance around a US military base in northeastern Syria.

The US Central Command (Centcom) reported through its official Twitter account that its forces encountered an Iranian-made drone on the evening of February 14 and shot it down as it was trying to conduct a reconnaissance operation of the US Mission Support Site Conoco in northeastern Syria.

Iran’s agents in Washington’s grip

This is not the first time that Washington has launched attacks on Iranian proxies deployed in Syrian territory. In late August 2022, the US military carried out air strikes on facilities used by groups affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Syria.

At the time, Centcom reported that the strike was aimed at protecting American forces from attacks by Iran's arms in Syria. Sources revealed that the strike targeted the stockpile of Iranian ballistic missiles.

In November 2022, an Iranian arms convoy in the Al-Bukamal region in eastern Syria was subjected to air strikes, and Iran pointed the finger at Washington at the time, although some sources revealed Israel's involvement in this attack.

It should be noted that the American goal of the continuous targeting of Iran and its proxies, especially in Syria, is due to the American administration’s desire to defeat any attempt by the mullah regime to undermine the efforts of the US-led international coalition to fight ISIS in Syria.

Observers believe that Washington wants, through these repeated strikes, to deliver some messages to the Iranian regime, the first of which is that the negotiations of the nuclear agreement have stopped because of the regime’s refusal to respond to the American condition of stopping its support for its terrorist militias in the countries of the region. This does not mean that the American forces will stop targeting Iran and its proxies. On the contrary, Washington will launch more strikes and impose more sanctions until the mullah regime is curtailed and stops supporting its proxies, and even to hinder it from producing ballistic missiles and drones, namely by tightening the economic stranglehold on Tehran.

As for the other message, it is that Washington is well aware that Iran, after Russia withdrew part of its forces from Syrian territory as a result of its preoccupation with the war in Ukraine, is trying to fill this void and push its forces in Syria to deploy in place of Moscow’s forces. Washington also knows that Iran has a good relationship with the Syrian regime, which will not oppose the presence of Iranian forces in areas that were under the control of Russian forces, and therefore these strikes are launched continuously to impede the Iranian plan in Syria.

ISIS expansion

Mohamed Abadi, a researcher of Iranian affairs, confirmed that Tehran is pressing to allow ISIS to expand and put pressure on the United States and force it to withdraw its forces from Syrian territory so that the arena is left empty in front of ISIS on the one hand and Iran and its militias on the other.

Abadi added in statements to the Reference that the United States and the counterterrorist coalition are playing a remarkable role in trying to contain Iranian expansion in Syria, especially in the Syrian Badia desert in the east of the country, with the aim of preventing Tehran from controlling this region.