Pakistan, a New War Front?

Excerpt

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been traveling the Middle East, campaigning tirelessly to contain the war that began with the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7. America’s top diplomat has appealed to the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others to help prevent a wider regional war from erupting. No country has felt more pressure than Israel.

But the war keeps widening, anyway. The Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group has attacked Israel hundreds of times from Lebanon, eliciting predictable Israeli responses. Iran-backed militias have attacked American bases more than 130 times since October 17; the U.S. has responded 8 times. The Iran-backed Houthis have been terrorizing the Red Sea with drones and missile attacks against maritime vessels. The U.S. is now responding with significant force. Iran claimed direct responsibility for two missiles that it fired at the northern Iraq town of Erbil, claiming that it struck Israeli targets there. Jordan’s air force has recently started striking Iran-backed drug smugglers in Syria with connections to the sale of the highly addictive drug captagon.

Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. Follow him on X @JSchanzer.