US Strike On Iranian Facility In Syria A 'Deterrent', White House Says
The US military strikes in Syria are aimed at destroying weaponry and deterring Iranian-backed groups from targeting American troops, the White House said on Thursday.
The US military strikes in Syria are aimed at destroying weaponry and deterring Iranian-backed groups from targeting American troops, the White House said on Thursday.
The United States carried out strikes in early hours of Thursday local time against a weapon storage facility in eastern Syria that the Pentagon said was used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups.
President Joe Biden said the United States had to respond after US troops were targeted and that the retaliatory strikes were working. Asked if the US military would respond again, Biden told reporters it would if it had to.
Since the Israel and Hamas war broke out on October 7 after a terror attack by the Palestinian group, Iran’s proxies resumed their rocket and drone attacks against US bases in Syria and Iraq, which had not taken place for more than a year.
However, the US retaliatory attacks have been limited to one or two targets and has so far failed to deter Iran and its proxies. Critics have been demanding a more robust response. They say Biden's lenient approach towards the Islamic Republic has emboldened not just the regime but its proxies in the region.
White House spokesman John Kirby separately told CNN that the US strikes "had a practical impact on their ability to arm these groups, but also to send a strong signal of deterrence."
"These groups have a choice to make: If they want to continue to attack our troops in Iraq and Syria, then they're gonna have to face the consequences for that," Kirby added.
US and coalition troops have been attacked at least 40 times in Iraq and Syria by Iran-backed forces since the start of October, as tensions soar over the Gaza war. Forty-five U.S. troops have suffered traumatic brain injuries or minor wounds.
Iran has denied involvement. Tehran's ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said on Thursday separatist groups were responding to the Israeli assault that has killed more than 10,800 Palestinians in Gaza.
"It is a natural reaction by the resistance groups. It is their own decision and by their own direction," Iravani said in an interview with CNN.
The White House rejected the ambassador's assertion.
"He stands on a real, real, real fine little pin there when he talks about coordination and not directing," Kirby responded.
"To some degree, they probably do have some measure of autonomy, but they are absolutely encouraged to do these attacks," Kirby said.
"We know that the IRGC is involved directly with helping these groups make some of the decisions that they're doing, and in fact directing some of these attacks."
When Biden assumed office in January 2021, he launched indirect negotiations with the Tehran to revive the Obama-era JCPOA nuclear accord that his predecessor had abandoned.
The talks failed to reach a new agreement, but in August Washington agreed to release $6 blocked in South Korean banks in exchange for Iran freeing 5 Americans held hostage. The deal was harshly criticized by Republicans and others as providing Tehran with money that it could use to finance its destabilizing activities in the region.
Critics also charge that the Biden administration has failed to enforce existing US sanctions and Iran’s oil exports have increased to near pre-sanctions days.
Senate Republicans introduced a bill before the October 7 Hamas attack that would make it extremely difficult for the Biden administration to lift economic sanctions imposed on Iran.
The PUNISH Act takes away the President’s executive authority to lift economic penalties until the administration can show that the Islamic Republic and its affiliated groups in the region have ceased all attempts to assassinate American officials, citizens, and Iranian nationals in the United States.
“If you want to strangle Iran, you cut off their oil,” said Republican Senator John Kennedy on Monday. “The Biden admin is choosing not to do that, and now they wonder why Iran’s proxies thought they could get away with attacking Israel and, by extension, America.”
Republican presidential candidates former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis led the third GOP debate with decisive plans against the Islamic Republic as all the runners were unanimous that Tehran is the head of the snake that is wreaking havoc across the Middle East and the world. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) and entrepreneur-turned-politician Vivek Ramaswamy were also contenders.
Israel, the closest US ally in the Middle East, was invaded by Iran-backed Hamas militias on October 7, an operation cheered and cherished by Tehran that saw 1,400 mostly civilians slaughtered and over 240 taken to Gaza as hostages. Israel has been pounding the enclave to uproot the Islamist group, which has made the war exceedingly bloody hiding deep among the civilian population and underneath the coastal sliver’s non-military facilities. GOP hopefuls reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, but went further and vowed to address the issue at its core, the regime in Tehran.
Four of the five GOP presidential candidates in the debate voiced strong support for Israel in its war against Hamas, whose self-proclaimed goal is to wipe Israel off the map, with only Ramaswamy warning against the US being drawn into another war in the Middle East.
In response to a question about what he would tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were president, DeSantis said, "I will tell Bibi to finish the job once and for all and destroy the butchers from Hamas." Haley said she too would not tell him anything other than to provide support to finish Hamas. “Finish them. Finish them... The last thing we need to do is tell Israel what to do," she said.
"There would be no Hamas without Iran; there would be no Hezbollah [Iran's Lebanese proxy] without Iran; no Houthis [in Yemen] without Iran; and there would not be Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq trying to hit US military men and women,” Haley said, noting that Iran is itself funded by the oil it sells to China and the drones and missiles it sells to Russia. “There is an unholy alliance.”
Answering a question on the US using military force against Iran, Haley said President Joe Biden "tiptoes" around Iran, stating that Iran will stop attacking US forces in the region only if the US uses force to prevent it. It is “unthinkable” that American forces are being hit by Iran-backed militias under Biden’s watch.
"This is Iran giving the green light... we need to go and take out their infrastructure” that enables the strikes. “Iran responds to strength, you punch them one and you punch them hard, and they will back off.”
Of around 40 attacks on US facilities since the war broke out in Gaza, the US has retaliated only twice. DeSantis also said Biden is not doing enough to protect US soldiers in the Middle East from Iranian attacks, stating that “You harm a hair on the head of an American service member and you are going to have hell to pay.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said to make sure Hamas, or any other Iran-backed militia group, would not threaten Israel and US forces in the region, Washington must work with its Arab allies in the region to further isolate Iran “so their only friends are the evil forces: China, Russia, and North Korea.”
Sen. Scott highlighted Israel’s “right and the responsibility” to wipe Hamas off the map, calling on Biden to be more aggressive in attacking Iranian assets. "We need to attack Iran, not just warehouses in Syria," Scott said, an apparent reference to the US airstrike on a facility controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups in eastern Syria hours before the debate started.
"We need to cut the head of the snake, and the head of the snake is Iran and not simply its proxies,” he said. “Diplomacy only is a weak strategy... You cannot negotiate with evil. You have to destroy it.”
The Republican runners competed with one another to debunk the “so-called Islamophobia” and spoke out aggressively about antisemitism, vowing to deport foreign students who support Hamas and cut any federal funding to universities that are tolerating antisemitism as it surges across the US. Jewish schools and synagogues have been forced to close as hate crimes against the Jewish community are worse than has been seen in recent history.
“Let me just say to every single university president in America, federal funding is a privilege not a right,” Scott said. “To all the students on visas who are encouraging Jewish genocide, I would deport you."
In a rare show of unity, the Republican presidential candidates all drew a hard line on Iran and issued stark warnings to the Islamic Republic, who has been warning of the conflict spiraling into a larger regional war since Israel launched its retaliatory offensive on Hamas. The GOP runners’ promise is the latest in a wave of calls for a military action against Iran, which is not shy about its support for anti-Israel and anti-US sentiments and actions across the Middle East and is counting the days until the destruction of Israel as prophesied by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.