The Pentagon has confirmed it is sending a THAAD missile defence system and US troops to Israel, publicly acknowledging that US troops will be on the ground assisting in Israel's defence.
Try to scare Iran into not attacking. Iran targets military installations including missile systems so there is now a chance that they will blow up legally (at least according to USA) stationed US soldiers there. Or worse, this might be a deliberate provocation and they want Iran to blow them up to have some bloody shirt to blind the people into yet another war.
Iran has already taken on US military installations in Syria and in Iraq. It seems very likely that there was a US presence at some of the military installations that Iran has already attacked in Israel.
Sure, but the situation is different, US now is blinded with blood, note how the most significant part of that news is that they are officially deployed right into what is basically hot target zone.
It's more likely that they are being sent because they are trained to operate THAAD and sending them is more efficient than training IDF troops to operate it.
Iran launched missiles at US bases in Iraq a few years ago with very little in the way of retaliation.
Wasn't this around the time US murdered Soleimani? It was clear back then that US no longer want war, Soleimani head was to have a last word and to appease republican hawks in Washington. Now the situation is different, current administration seem to push for war. Also US is perfectly able to ignore any and all deaths of its citizens when they don't want war, but bray for blood at the slightest provocation when they do want. They just have an excellent propaganda around this - most glaring historical example is how the sinking of Lusitiania scared Germans so much that in september 1939 even Goebbels eaten all that propaganda and after sinking Athenia everyone there was scared shitless and entire act was made so secret that it only accidentally came to light after war. Also USS Liberty incident.
Yeah I think that's why Iran attacked the US base (might have been multiple, I can't really remember) iirc.
I think a big part of why the US didn't respond is that a) they took out Soleimani first and b) an Iranian air defence battery, on high alert expecting US retaliation, immediatley shot down a passenger jet.
The airliner being downed really took the sting out of it, kind of like someone swinging at you, barely connecting, and then immediately punching themselves in the dick.
Yeah i remember that, really awful accident, i think that cooled a lot of heads in Iran and western hawks were gloating about "barbarous asiatic regime shooting at random targets in a bouts of fear and paranoia" which appeased their bloodthirst and superiority complex somewhat.