On January 29, Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center, was quoted in The Telegraph on his section in an experts react piece on the news that three US service members had been killed in Jordan by Iran-backed militants.
Deterrence works by convincing an adversary that the costs to attacking the United States and its allies and interests greatly outweighs any conceivable benefits. [Limiting attacks to Iran’s proxy forces] would be read in Tehran as a sign of weakness and simply stoke a continued cycle of violence.