Thirteen ballistic missiles from Iran hit Camp Titin near Aqaba, Jordan on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Ten were intercepted. Three were not.
More than 50,000 American service members are deployed across the Middle East right now. Iran just shot at them.
The strike came just days after U.S. forces hit Iranian targets on August 30, hammering air-defense systems, radar installations, and military sites across Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Chabahar, Konarak, Jask, Sirik, and Ahvaz. Iranian state media claimed 4 killed and more than 50 wounded near Sirik alone. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps controls military operations across these sites, and the IRGC's infrastructure took a beating.
President Trump immediately put out a statement following the U.S.'s retaliatory strikes on Iran: "If they do respond, they'll be hit much harder," Trump said. "This is a very big hit today. If it goes a third time, they're going to be totally wiped out as a country."
Trump also said the strategy was deliberate: "They tried to rebuild their radar because they can't see anything," he said. "We waited until it was almost built and then we hit it."
He also made clear the USS George Washington carrier strike group is positioned and ready. "The George Washington is loaded to the gills," Trump said. "We're loaded up." The carrier is stationed near the Strait of Hormuz — the 21-mile-wide chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil passes every day.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reportedly signaled Tehran was prepared to return to a June ceasefire framework. Trump wasn't buying. "I think an agreement with them isn't worth the paper it's written on," he said. "We gave them a lot of chances."
U.S. Central Command confirmed the Jordanian Armed Forces assisted in intercepting the incoming missiles. Jordan — a treaty ally that actually cooperates with the United States — helped knock down the majority of the barrage before it could reach American personnel.
Now here's the part the "diplomacy first" crowd will have trouble with. We tried diplomacy. Barack Obama tried diplomacy so hard he shipped $1.7 billion in cash on pallets to Tehran and signed a deal that let them enrich uranium on a timeline. That deal funded the Revolutionary Guard. That deal modernized their missile program. Those missiles flew on Tuesday.
The same foreign policy establishment that called Trump "reckless" for pulling out of the Iran deal in 2018 now gets to explain why Iranian ballistic missiles are landing near American troops in Jordan. The Larak Island facilities the U.S. struck included sea mine staging areas — weapons designed to shut down commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Every pallets-of-cash defender, every "diplomacy works" think-tanker, every cable news general who spent four years insisting engagement was the responsible path — they don't get to act surprised that the regime they enriched is now firing missiles at our bases.
Tehran's pattern hasn't changed in 47 years. What changed is the response. The last administration gave Iran a runway. This one gave them a deadline.
The paper the next agreement would be written on isn't worth the ink. Trump seems to know that. Tehran is about to find out.
