THAAD deployment: Is US stoking or reducing Iran-Israel tensions?

As the spectre of a major escalation by Israel against Iran looms large, global security experts are debating whether the recent US troop deployment to Israel along with a sophisticated anti-missile system amounts to a “tacit approval” of Tel Aviv’s brutal military offensive, which has extended beyond Gaza to neighbouring Lebanon as well.

“By protecting Israel, the US is hoping to keep Israel from stepping up to the next kind of response,” CNN’s global affairs analyst Kim Dozier told her colleague on a morning show on Monday.

Israel has shown no signs of stopping the war in the past 12 months, relentlessly pounding Gaza and taking the aggression to Lebanon and Syria as well.

For Ecaterina Matoi, a scholar at the Middle East Political and Economic Institute (MEPEI), US deployment is “a strong forewarning message to Iran in particular, but also to other state and non-state actors that might intervene in one way or another in the conflict already unfolding in the region”.

The US move complements Washington’s “firm stance towards the protection of Israel”, adapted in a sense of “the evolution and expansion of the conflict in Lebanon and possibly in the very near future also in Syria and maybe Iran,” Matoi tells TRT World.

But Washingon has also come under severe criticism for dispatching 100 troops and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system to Israel, as the region is bracing for the far-right Netanyahu government’s response to Tehran’s recent retaliation against Israel.

Many geopolitical analysts and human rights defenders view the US’s increasing involvement in favour of Israel as a degradation of America’s global leadership role, as the troop and THAAD deployment could further embolden Benjamin Netanyahu to commit mass slaughter and deal a disproportionate blow to Iran, which can trigger an all-out regional war.

Since October 7, regional tensions have shown no signs of abating. From Israel’s brutal Gaza occupation and Hamas politburo chief Ismael Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran, to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s killing in Beirut, Israel has been “more unhinged than ever” from the beginning of the war.

“As a matter of US policy, this is nothing new,” says Edward Erickson, a former American military officer and a retired professor of military history at the Department of War Studies at the Marine Corps University, referring to the recent deployment,

While both Republican and Democratic administrations have deployed many defence systems including Patriots in Israel to defend Tel Aviv from its adversaries, Erickson draws attention to the fact that “it is the first time” the US has deployed “the newer THAADS system”.

Patriots and THAADs are defensive systems to support other Israeli anti-missile measures like the Iron Dome, Arrow and David’s Sling. Escalating tensions across the Middle East has apparently forced the US to deploy a more sophisticated anti-missile system to bolster its ally.

Iron Dome has recently shown some weaknesses against Iranian and Hezbollah attacks, which have been able to penetrate into Israeli territory, leading to considerable damage. On Sunday, Hezbollah was able to hit an Israeli military base in Haifa, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens as Iron Dome could not intercept a drone coming from south Lebanon.

Iron Dome has been partly funded by the US. Arrow, an Israeli system, was co-funded and co-produced by Tel Aviv and Washington like David’s Sling.

Unreliable Israel

Tehran has already issued a stern warning to Israel that if the Netanyahu government attacks Iran, the response “will be more powerful” than October 1 missile attacks. “Any attack against infrastructure in Iran will provoke an even stronger response,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

The Biden administration has urged Israel not to target Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities and the Netanyahu government has recently signalled that Tel Aviv will comply with the US request, choosing to strike military locations.

But it remains to be seen how much Israel will stay true to its word as Tel Aviv has changed its political direction several times in the past despite its previous pledges. In mid-August, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that Israel “agreed” to a ceasefire deal with Hamas, but it has never materialised since then.

In late September, a similar scenario repeated as the US and 11 other states, most of whom were leading Western states, announced that they supported a 21-day ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah, which had been greenlit by the Netanyahu government. But two days after the declaration Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah in his bunker in Beirut using American weapons.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told CNN that Nasrallah agreed with the deal prior to the Israeli assassination on September 27.

Will the US enter a possible regional war?

One of the burning questions in foreign policy circles is whether the THAAD deployment could translate into the US preparing for entering a potential regional war on behalf of Israel.

While the US as a superpower rushes to defend its allies, it still maintains its priorities including internal considerations, adds the analyst.

The direction of Israel’s military aggression may also be influenced by the outcome of the upcoming US presidential election between the two increasingly uncompromising camps, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.

But Erickson predicts the US involvement to be limited, not extensive, as long as Iran did not take any aim at the US troops or assets in the region.

“Other than assisting and participating in the aerial defense of Israel, the US will stay out of any Middle East war,” Erickson tells TRT World. “This would only change if Iran or one of its proxies directly attacked a US base, ship, or embassy and inflicted severe losses of American life,” he adds.

“Prospects of a conventional war between Iran and Israel starting any time soon are difficult to predict, as Iran does not want a direct confrontation with Israel backed by allies such as the US,” says Matoi.

But she also draws attention to US-backed Israel’s political agenda, which aims to annihilate both Hamas and Hezbollah, seeking regime changes in countries like Lebanon and Iran. As a result, “a direct conflict cannot be taken out of the equation”, she says.

As for the US involvement in a war on Israel's side, it can also not be “taken out of the picture since Tel Aviv would never have started, or even initiated a conflict with Lebanon at least, if it had not been unconditionally supported by the US,” says Matoi.

At least 2,300 Lebanese people have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7 last year. In the past 24 hours, Israel bombarded several Lebanese neighbourhoods, killing 51 people and injuring 174 others.

“There is at least a 50-50 chance that the United States will attack Iran by air if a conventional war starts between Israel and Iran. Yet let us not forget that Israel and its allies know that it is not easy to defeat Iran unless they intervene on several fronts, including from the inside,” says Matoi.