President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday that he has made his decision on how he plans to retaliate against Iranian-backed terrorists in the Middle East who murdered three U.S. soldiers this week, wounding dozens more, in a suicide drone attack.
Biden said that he holds Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, responsible for the deaths of the Americans “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”
Officials told CBS News that the suicide drone attack was successful because the drone flew behind a U.S. drone that was returning to the base after a mission. Because the U.S. drone was returning, the base temporarily took parts of its air defense system offline so the drone would not be shot down. The enemy drone exploited this gap and struck the barracks while the soldiers slept.
“Officials say plans call for the U.S. to launch a real bombing campaign, not just another round of one and done retaliatory strikes of the kind it has conducted so far,” CBS News reported. “Once it begins, the bombing is likely to continue for a number of days.”
President Biden said he has reached a decision on the U.S. response to the drone attack that killed three American soldiers in Jordan. The president said he holds Iran responsible for the attack, but emphasized the world does not need a wider conflict in the Middle East. pic.twitter.com/BlOlxgolG2
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) January 31, 2024
Andrea Stricker, Deputy Director & Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) Nonproliferation & Biodefense program, slammed the Biden administration for once again tipping off the enemy about what its plans were.
“Having let these attacks go on for so long—resulting in the deaths of three service members—the administration must now ‘shock the system’ of the regime to deter further attacks,” Stricker told The Daily Wire. “The blow must be so devastating that Tehran orders its proxies to stand down.”
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“Anything less than that will ensure this cycle continues and brings the regional war Washington hopes to avoid,” she continued. “The administration is too deliberately telegraphing its desire for restraint. The adversary needs to believe we are both able and willing to use major force to avenge these deaths and prevent additional ones.”