President Biden said he has decided how to retaliate over the deadly attack against US forces in Jordan, but didn’t elaborate

On Sunday, a drone launched by an Iran-backed militia struck a housing compound at a US base in Jordan, killing three Army reservists and wounding 40+ other US troops

Afterward, US defense officials said there was confusion about whether the drone was an American one or an Iranian-linked one, potentially enabling the drone to penetrate air defenses

The strike in Jordan was the first since October 7 in which Americans were killed in action

Two American troops were also presumed dead after an operation earlier this month against the Iran-backed Houthis, but they were lost at sea, not killed in action

The Jordan attack has sparked criticism that the Biden administration was not doing enough to deter Iran from enabling such attacks, putting pressure on him to order a substantial response

Policymakers have since debated how the US should respond to the attack

Some analysts predicted the US will intensify its attacks on Iran-backed groups across the Middle East, likely by conducting sustained strikes rather than one-off attacks

That could also include attacks on Iranian military advisers working with those groups across in Iraq, Syria, and other countries

A more drastic response would be direct strikes on Iran, but that would run the risk of war

On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US “will respond decisively…and we will hold responsible the people who attacked our troops”

He said the response “could be multileveled, come in stages, and be sustained over time”

Then when asked by reporters on Tuesday if he had decided how to respond to the strike, President Biden said, “Yes”

He declined to elaborate but added, “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East”

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