Kirby said on Monday that the US would deliver a “very consequential response” to the attack a day earlier on the Tower 22 barracks near Jordan’s border with Syria, which Washington blamed on militants linked to Iran. Tehran has rejected the claim.
However, Kirby insisted that such a response would not mean a war with Iran, whom Washington accuses of supporting groups opposed to the US presence in the region.
“… we don’t seek a war with Iran. We’re not looking for a wider conflict in the Middle East,” he told the CNN.
Kirby added that the US wants the recurrent attacks on its military personnel in the region to stop while claiming that Washington is after a stable, secure and prosperous Middle East.
The comments come as resistance groups in several Arab countries continue to launch attacks on US and Israeli interests in the region as part of a campaign to secure an end to the brutal Israeli aggression against Palestinians in Gaza.
Regional resistance groups have stressed that attacks on the US and allies could stop if Israel agrees to a permanent ceasefire in the besieged strip.
A spokesperson for the US Defence Department has also stated the Joe Biden administration doesn’t believe Iran is seeking a war with the United States.
Washington also is not looking for a war, said spokesperson Sabrina Singh.
“We don’t seek war, but we will take action, and respond to attacks on our forces.”
Singh added that the latest attack on the US, which killed three troops in Jordan, had the “footprints” of Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah, a paramilitary group in Iraq.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the environment in the Middle East is as dangerous as it’s been in the region “since at least 1973, and arguably even before that”.
Blinken, who was speaking at a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, said that the US response to Iran-backed militias allegedly killing three US Army reservists in Jordan “could be multileveled, come in stages and be sustained over time”.
“We want to prevent this conflict from spreading, so we are intent on doing both, that is standing up for our people when they’re attacked, while at the same time working every single day to prevent the conflict from growing and spreading,” added Blinken.
Meantime, two officials told Politico Biden is ordering his advisers to present a range of US response options that would forcefully deter other attacks while also not further inflaming a smoldering region.
Among the options on the table for the Pentagon: striking Iranian personnel in Syria or Iraq or Iranian naval assets in the Persian Gulf, according to the officials.
The officials suggested that, once the president gave the go-ahead, the retaliation would likely begin in the next couple of days and come in waves against a range of targets.
