How far will the US go against Iran?

Sam Hawley: When three American soldiers were killed in a drone attack on a US base in Jordan, there was a flurry of talk of World War III. It may have been over the top, but the stakes in the conflict in the Middle East have risen dramatically with the US blaming Iran and its proxies for the strike. It's since retaliated, bombing dozens of targets in Iraq and Syria.

Today host of the Iran podcast, Negar Mortazavi, on what could come next. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.

Negar, when three American soldiers were killed in Jordan, it really was a moment when you thought this is the escalation that people were warning of in the Middle East, that this could really go very, very badly.

News report: Fears of a wider regional war in the Middle East have escalated after three US soldiers were killed by Iranian-backed militants in Jordan.

Sam Hawley: It was concerning, wasn't it?

Negar Mortazavi: Yes, that moment, that fatal attack on US forces was a breaking point.

News report: It's the first time US military personnel have been killed by hostile fire since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.

Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State: The President's been crystal clear. We will respond decisively to any aggression. And we will hold responsible the people who attacked our troops. We'll do so at a time and a place of our choosing.

Negar Mortazavi: I think it's one of those moments that we're going to look back in history and either say that was the moment that led to that big Middle East war, or it's going to be a moment that we say that's when both sides decided to de-escalate and prevent the next big war.

Sam Hawley: Yeah, because, of course, immediately after that, there was fear that Joe Biden could retaliate by striking inside Iran itself. And then there were headlines warning of World War Three.

Negar Mortazavi: Exactly. So I think the US has retaliated. I mean, this is an election year here in the US. President Biden is up for re-election and a lot of what's happening abroad is actually domestic here. So he had no choice but to retaliate, to show some toughness. In Washington, they call it to establish deterrence. But at the same time, I think the Americans understood that attacking Iran inside its borders is a major red line. It's going to be seen as a serious declaration of war and that it's going to just escalate into a war cycle. So they stayed outside of Iranian borders. They try to stick to militias and sites. And also they telegraphed that they're going to attack a few days before, essentially sending a political message that if you want to get out of the way and minimise casualties, now is the time.

Sam Hawley: The US says that it was the Islamic Resistance in Iraq that was behind the drone attack. Give me some more details about exactly what the US is doing now, where it's striking, what we're seeing.

Negar Mortazavi: The US has targeted about 80 something locations attacked in Iraq and Syria.

News report: Footage captures America's response to a deadly drone attack. This among 85 targets at seven facilities said to have been hit.

Negar Mortazavi: Now, most of these sites seem to be either command centres or depots or basically centres for arms equipment where the drones have been launched for the militia's use, for essentially what the US considers these attacks on the US and its allies. The Syrian and Iraqi governments have both condemned the attacks. They have warned that this is leading to more escalation. The Iranians have said that this is going to lead to more escalation. So we have seen sort of a response in a form of statements to the US actions, but at the same time, reading between the lines of these statements coming from Tehran, it sounds like they don't intend to escalate further than this. And they have received a message from Washington that the Biden administration also doesn't want to escalate this into a major war, as you said, World War Three.

Sam Hawley: So just a reminder, the US says those soldiers, the three American soldiers, were killed by a drone attack by an Iranian backed militia. But of course, Iran has always denied that it had anything to do with it. So let's just get a better sense of this and what Iran's role is, because of course, Iran backs militant groups across the Middle East, known as the Axis of Resistance. Now, just tell me about that.

Negar Mortazavi: Sure. So just in brief, the Axis of Resistance is a group of state and non-state actors, Iran, Syria, and a group of militias that each have a sort of local organic grounding in their own country. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Iraqi militias in Iraq, obviously Hamas in Palestine. But they also coordinate and are allied with Tehran. They see a shared goal as they call it of resistance, resistance to American presence, interference in the region, resistance to Israel and its policies.

Sam Hawley: All right. But they're funded by Iran and they receive weapons from Iran, do they?

Negar Mortazavi: Support in all forms. Yes, financial funding, weapons, logistics, intelligence, training in some cases. Although Tehran has tried to maintain plausible deniability, some of these are publicly known, some of them are not. But essentially, they all it's seen as a loose coalition. They all call themselves part of this resistance, this Axis of Resistance. And they're essentially publicly saying that they want to raise the cost of this war for Israel. But at the same time, these groups are not entirely proxies or bases or an extension of the Iranian armed forces. They have their own autonomy. It's not like Tehran tells them or plans every single operation. So they don't have full control. Tehran essentially doesn't have full control over these militias, but they support them, they back them and they benefit from this shared goal. And so they have essentially responded to the Israel-Hamas war, Israel's attack on Gaza, and tried to attack Israel in these multiple theatres and essentially raise the cost of this war for Israel and by extension, the United States.

Sam Hawley: So Negar, to understand how these proxies work, we really need to step back in history.

Negar Mortazavi: So we have to go all the way back to the 1980s, right after the Iranian revolution, when Iraq, this is under Saddam, attacked Iran. And Iran had to essentially deal with a brutal war for eight years, very bloody, lots of casualties. Part of Iranian land was taken. They had to fight back to return the land. And that memory of that war is really still vivid in the Iranian psyche. There are still many, many streets across Iran that are named after the so-called martyrs of that Iran-Iraq war. So after that, Iran or Islamic Republic decided that they're going to move any future wars outside of their border, that they're not going to let this happen again and that they're going to essentially establish a regional policy in the form of this alliance with the various militias and other countries, that they're going to make sure that if they have to fight a war, it's going to be outside of Iran's borders, either through essentially a proxy war, an unconventional war, asymmetric warfare, and that they're not going to be attacked again. And we see this in their public messaging a lot, constantly saying, especially in their fight against ISIS, that they are fighting ISIS outside Iranian borders so that they don't have to fight them in Tehran and Hamedan and other Iranian cities. And the 'resistance', this so-called 'resistance' in that motto, comes from essentially this ideology that they're resisting US presence in the region, especially after the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, that they want the US to leave this region, leave their neighbourhood, stop interfering. And they're also resisting Israeli presence in the Middle East.

Sam Hawley: So what else are we seeing from the Axis of Resistance, from these Iranian proxies on the sidelines of the war in Gaza?

Negar Mortazavi: Well, another theatre that's been very visible is the Red Sea. The Houthis, essentially this insurgency, this resistance group in Yemen, have inserted themselves into the war and publicly saying that they're trying to attack Israeli ships or Israeli-owned ships. Now, whether that's accurate or not, it's another story. But essentially raising the cost of shipping through the Red Sea for Israel and to have this sort of unsafe, create this unsafe route in the Red Sea. And the US has also taken a very harsh reaction to that. They've started with patrols and now they're attacking and striking Houthi bases. And it's really not working. I mean, in the words of the president himself, Joe Biden, saying, are these attacks on the Houthis working? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.

Sam Hawley: Well, the White House national security spokesman, John Kirby, he's been really clear that he doesn't want direct war with Iran, that the US is only defending itself.

John Kirby, US National Security Spokesperson: We're not seeking a conflict with the regime in a military way. We're not looking to escalate here. This attack over the weekend was escalatory. Make no mistake about it. And it requires a response. Make no mistake about that.

Sam Hawley: And as you mentioned, there doesn't seem to be appetite from within Iran itself for any escalation here. But how can we be sure that that will remain the case?

Negar Mortazavi: It is a volatile region. Things can get out of hand. We're not working in a laboratory environment and things can blow up here and there once you start lighting little fires, even though you want to prevent that big one, they can eventually catch on and essentially you can be sleepwalking into a conflict that you think you wanted to prevent.

Sam Hawley: And what would war with Iran look like? What is Iran's military capability at this point?

Negar Mortazavi: Well, war with Iran in brief would just be many times more disastrous than the US war or invasion of Iraq. Iran is a much bigger country. It's much more populated. The central government is stronger and more capable. And also Iran enjoys the support of Russia and China, two big eastern powers. They rely on China for economic and business support and trade. And they also rely on Russia for military support. So a US confrontation with Iran is just going to look like another disastrous war that the US could be bogged down in in the Middle East, like we saw in Afghanistan for two decades and in Iraq, which actually hasn't really ended. The US still has a presence in that country.

Sam Hawley: How worried, Negar, do you think we should be about what is occurring in the Middle East now?

Negar Mortazavi: Well, I think we should be mildly worried. I don't want to be alarmist. And also it's important to know this is a democratic president. This is a president who really is not intended on starting the next Middle East war. This is not Donald Trump. If this was a Republican administration, especially the previous one with President Trump, things would look very, very different and the worry level would be much higher. But nevertheless, as I said, we still should be worried, even though both sides say we don't want a war, we don't want direct confrontation. What we're seeing is really an expansion of this conflict in all of these theatres. We're seeing an increased casualty of civilians, thousands of children and the hostages remain in captivity. And it's just, it hasn't reached a point that you would say, OK, this is deescalated. And it's only escalated since October 7th. And with the US being the most powerful party, the one with the utmost leverage on multiple parties in that area, I think diplomacy is something that Washington should just push more for and pursue.

Sam Hawley: Our supervising producer is David Coady. If you want to hear more about Yemen's Houthi rebels and their role in the regional conflict, catch this week's episode of If You're Listening with host Matt Bevan. That's on the ABC Listen app. I'm Sam Hawley. ABC News Daily will be back again on Monday. Thanks for listening.