The Middle East conflict is spiraling. Biden must force Israel to end the war | Mohamad Bazzi

As long as Biden remains unwilling to rein in Israel's attacks on Gaza, the US's conflict with Iranian-backed militias will escalate

Since Friday, the US military has launched dozens of airstrikes on targets in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Joe Biden's administration portrayed the wave of attacks as a response to a drone strike that killed three US troops at a military base in Jordan on 28 January, and to ongoing attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea by Yemen's Houthi militia. If you harm an American, we will respond," the US president said on Friday, adding that there will more retaliation to come.

Biden, the president who withdrew the last US troops and ended America's 20-year war in Afghanistan, could now become the same leader who started a new regional war in the Middle East that entangles the US in a conflict with Iran and its allied militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.