Attack on US service members in Jordan happened on Joe Biden’s watch. He owns it now | Opinion

Since Oct. 7, the day Iranian-funded and -armed Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 Israelis, their allies in militias across the Middle East have attacked American troops twice as often as Travis Kelce has caught the football in a Chiefs game.

The mullahs’ cannon fodder attacked more than 150 times, mostly failing to do significant damage. So rather than take the threat seriously, President Joe Biden has kept the U.S. military on a leash — allowing them to fire off a missile here and a bomb or two there in retaliation against the wannabe Islamist killers.

Now three Americans are dead. The deaths at a supply base in Jordan early Sunday morning were inevitable. The Biden administration had signaled this fact through a series of news stories based on leaks about the administration’s internal debates about what to do if and when the Iranian proxies succeeded in killing an American soldier.

We’re supposed to feel sorry for the Washington bureaucrats who don’t want to be dragged into a wider Middle East war. That’s a crock. Biden and his querulous Foggy Bottom minions had a choice if they wanted to avoid a wider war: Withdraw U.S. troops from the front lines with Iran where they serve in Syria, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and various tiny oil-rich princedoms or deliver an unmistakable message to Tehran that further attacks would carry an unbearable price.

Biden and his advisers chose neither withdrawal nor deterrence, leading to this inevitable moment. Americans died because Biden left them to die rather than act on what everyone knew would happen sooner or later.

And even outside the attacks on U.S. troops across the region often coming several times daily, Iran’s cats’ paws have not been avoiding American ire.

Iran-funded and -armed Hamas — which started this whole fracas with its bloody 10/7 attack on civilians — is still holding Americans hostage, maybe as many as six according to the White House. Biden’s response to their Iranian sponsors? Zilch.

Iran-funded and -armed Houthi militias in Yemen have attacked shipping in the Red Sea dozens of times with economic consequences across the globe. Response to Iran? Bupkis.

In Lebanon, Iran-funded and -armed Hezbollah has been firing rockets and artillery across the border with Israel. The American response to Iran? Nada.

Iran itself has fired off attacks on Pakistani, Iraqi and Syrian-soil — again, with no military response from Washington.

Now Biden tells reporters that he’ll “respond” to this latest attack for which Iran denies responsibility, though it is still unclear if when Biden responds through the U.S. military whether it will be another pinprick to an Iranian proxy, or whether it will be serious consequences directly for Iran.

What is clear is that it will be too little, too late for the families of three service members who have now lost loved ones because the Biden administration couldn’t get its act together.

To be sure, putting on the American uniform assumes serious risk for the patriots who choose to wear our colors. Moreover, every president is going to face the reality of American soldiers killed on their watch.

And America has important reasons to seek peace with Iran. The Biden administration has been trying to lure the religious dictatorship into a new agreement to curtail the nation’s nuclear ambitions.

But Iran may have misjudged just how far America was willing to bend to get that agreement in the wake of the Biden administration’s decisions to unfreeze and then refreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets as an aborted overture toward an agreement.

Iran may have misjudged American patience as well. We have dozens of executive orders putting in place stronger and stronger sanctions against the country. They go back to 1979.

Nevertheless, putting American lives on the line also requires a certain level of responsibility on the part of our leaders. U.S. soldiers shouldn’t have to sit with a target on their backs waiting to die so the president has an excuse to act.

Presidents have a duty to protect American soldiers from unnecessary harm. President Biden failed to live up to his responsibility.

David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square and a regular Star Opinion correspondent.