The Biden administration is sending an advanced anti-missile
defense system and 100 U.S. troops to Israel in advance of expected retaliatory
strikes against Iran. This marks the first significant deployment of American
troops to Israel since the beginning of its assault on Gaza, though the U.S.
has spent an estimated tens of billions of dollars on the Israeli military and
related operations. “The irony here is the Iranian missile attack is only going
to happen if we help Israel strike Iran first,” says Win Without War’s Harrison
Mann. With the deployment of troops to Israeli military installations, says
Mann, “Israel now has its own sort of American human shields” and “a new
mechanism to drag America into a war with Hezbollah and Iran.” Mann, who is
Jewish, is a former U.S. Army major who resigned from his position at the
Defense Intelligence Agency in protest of U.S. support for Israel’s war in
Gaza, a decision he says was inspired by student antiwar protests on U.S.
campuses.
