The war hawks are warbling again. Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday called on President Joe Biden to “strike targets of significance inside Iran,” while Senator John Cornyn said the U.S. should “target Tehran” by bombing its paramilitary forces. The future former presidential candidate Nikki Haley warned that Biden had been “weak in his treatment of Iran” and said “we should retaliate with the full force of American strength.”

None of this is new, of course. Graham has been demanding we bomb Iran since the reign of Xerxes I. Yet the casus belli this time around is much graver: Over the weekend, three American troops were killed and more than 30 injured in a drone strike at an outpost in Jordan near the Syrian border. Iran has denied involvement, but the strike was reportedly carried out by Iranian-backed militants who have been increasingly aggressive since Israel began bombing the Gaza Strip. Attacks on American forces in Syria have been frequent, while the Houthis in Yemen have been firing missiles at commercial ships in the Red Sea.

It’s now very possible that a wider war could engulf the Middle East, with Iran on one side and the U.S. on the other. That raises questions: why are American troops in Syria in the first place? Why are they in harm’s way in faraway Jordan? And why once again is the solution said to be even more bloodshed?