In the coming week, President Biden confronts Mideast military escalation.

Millions are traveling for China's Lunar New Year amid dim economic news, and Pakistan holds

a tense general election.

It's February 1st, 2020, in time for the world next week. I'm Bob McMahon.

And I'm Carl Ann Robbins.

Carlo, let's jump on the prevailing headline theme of the day, which is the response or the aftermath of the drone attack by what's described

as Iranian-backed militias on the U.S. military post in northeast Jordan. This is an attack in which

three U.S. soldiers were killed. It was the first known deadly attack on U.S. service members

since the war in Gaza began in October. Now, President

Biden has said that Iran is responsible for supplying the weapons. He also announced the U.S.

is going to respond and used a formulation that makes it clear that it will be happening

in a way that the U.S. is going to decide on, so something will happen, but at a time

in place of the U.S. choosing. So what is all this say about where the U.S. finds itself, and is it

caught in a bit of an escalation trap in this region? Yes. I don't think the president has any

choice but to respond. The question is whether he and his advisors can find a balance that

helps deter or seriously constrained future Iranian proxy attacks. And that means deterring

Tehran itself and without tipping the region into a much wider war. But this really is a

split-screen moment while the White House is weighing what military action to take.

And we have to be clear here. We're recording this Thursday morning, so the first steps may

happen even before our podcast drops. But the U.S. is also very focused on what it can do to

suspend the fighting in Gaza or help suspend the fighting in Gaza and eventually move toward a

larger diplomatic deal. And that current proposal,

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