Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at background briefing.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We begin with the mounting pressure on President Biden to retaliate against Iran for the drone

strike on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed three American soldiers and wounded 34.

Joining us to discuss what options Biden has, short of striking Iran and widening the war in the Middle

East, is Nicholas Harris, Senior Director for Strategy and Innovation at the New Lions Institute.

From 2016 to 2017, Nicholas served as the 10th First Lieutenant Andrew J. Bachevich Jr., USA

Fellow at the Center for New American Security, and he is the author of From the

Bottom Up, a strategy for U.S. military support for Syria's armed opposition. He conducted an

extensive study on Iran's proxies in the Middle East for the National Defense University.

Then after 160 attacks by pro-Iranian militias, because an incoming drone was

mistaken for a U.S. drone returning from a mission resulting in the deaths of U.S. soldiers,

we'll examine how much the presence of U.S. troops in the region who are fighting a defeated

enemy ISIS will now become the reason we will fight Iran.

Joining us is Paul Pillar, who served for 30 years as an analyst of the CIA, in which his

last position was National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia.

Previously, he served as the chief of analytics units at the CIA covering portions of the

Near East, the Persian Gulf,

and South Asia. He also headed the assessments and information group of the Director of Central

Intelligence as Counterterrorism Center and is currently a professor of security studies at

Georgetown University and a member of the Center for Peace and Security Studies.

We'll discuss his article at Responsible Statecraft,

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