Hawkish elements in Congress are demanding swift and harsh retaliation against an Iran-backed group that killed three U.S. Army soldiers in Jordan.
On the evening of Jan. 27, a drone strike on a U.S. base in Jordan ended in the deaths and injury to more than 30 others. Though it’s unknown who carried out the drone strike, it’s believed to have come from a group based in Syria and backed by Iran.
While the perpetrators are still being identified, President Joe Biden has already vowed retribution.
“We shall respond,” President Biden said during a stop in South Carolina on Jan. 28. Later, the president called for a moment of silence for the fallen troops.
Lawmakers, particularly hawkish Republicans, were also quick to demand retribution, up to and including direct U.S. strikes on Iran. They blamed President Biden’s policies for creating circumstances ripe for such an attack.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a statement chalked the attack up to “failure to deter America’s adversaries.”
“We cannot afford to keep responding to this violent aggression with hesitation and half-measures,” he said.
“We have known for years that Iran is behind a deadly wave of terror aimed at expelling America from the Middle East and wiping Israel from the map,“ Mr. McConnell added. ”The time to start taking this aggression seriously was long before more brave Americans lost their lives.
“The entire world now watches for signs that the President is finally prepared to exercise American strength to compel Iran to change its behavior,“ Mr. McConnell concluded. ”Our enemies are emboldened. And they will remain so until the United States imposes serious, crippling costs—not only on front-line terrorist proxies, but on their Iranian sponsors who wear American blood as a badge of honor.”
Other Senate Republicans agreed.
“It is time to act with purpose and resolve in response to attacks that have tragically taken the lives of American service members and injured scores more,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Ala.) said in a statement.
He called for an escalation in direct U.S. military action against Iran, one of the most powerful U.S. adversaries in the region that has close ties with communist China.
“We must respond to these repeated attacks by Iran & its proxies by striking directly against Iranian targets & its leadership,” Mr. Wicker said. “The Biden administration’s responses thus far have only invited more attacks. It is time to act swiftly and decisively for the whole world to see.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) echoed the sentiment in a two word post on X calling for the United States to “target Tehran,” Iran’s capital.
Deterrence Measure
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made the same demand.
“I am calling on the Biden Administration to strike targets of significance inside Iran, not only as reprisal for the killing of our forces, but as deterrence against future aggression,” he said.
Mr. Graham said that simply taking out Iranian proxies isn’t enough and “will not deter Iranian aggression.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) accused President Biden of enabling the attack by being too soft on Iran.
“Joe Biden emboldened Iran for years by tolerating attacks on our troops, bribing the ayatollahs with billions of dollars, and appeasing them to no end,” Mr. Cotton said in a statement.
“The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East,” Mr. Cotton added. “Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander-in-chief.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) made the same argument, writing, “This tragedy was avoidable.”
“For years now, Biden has emboldened Iran—sending them billions & tolerating their aggression against our troops,” Mr. Scalise said. “America must show strength.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was more vague in his statement on the matter, saying only, “America must send a crystal clear message across the globe that attacks on our troops will not be tolerated.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) didn’t go as far as to hold President Biden accountable for the attack, but said, “Every single malignant actor responsible must be held accountable.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) hasn’t released a public statement on the attack.
Former President Donald Trump weighed in in a post on Truth Social, calling the attack “a horrible day for America.”
“My most profound sympathies go to the Families of the Brave Servicemembers we have lost. I ask all Americans to join me in praying for those who have been wounded,” President Trump said.
“This brazen attack on the United States is yet another horrific and tragic consequence of Joe Biden’s weakness and surrender.”
While details on who carried out the attack remain murky, it marks a significant escalation in the region, which has been a powder keg since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
The U N was formed so that never again could the Malach-ha Mavis’s (Angels of Death) arise to exterminate people on a mass scale as in WWII, but here we are again, within the ranks of a United in Death United Nations of Hamas enablers, with even the American Biden Presidency acting as an enabling financial minion in funds mis-appropriated as slick as the gold removed from the teeth of Jewish prisoner victims at Auschwitz and Treblinka, redistributing the life blood of American tax dollars meant for good to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, into funding of Hamas’ criminal evil, making good American taxpayers co-conspirators in their evil. So much for Christian American rights to live in the image of the Great Creator, now forced to finance the dark side of the Great Consumer Lucifer, the fallen Angel of light who rebelled and won himself a kingdom. Like National socialists of 1930s Germany, Modern power-seeking Democrat party extremists who fail to convert you, fail to throw you out of power or dismay you in political arrests, most assuredly are considering ways to exterminate first your economic life forces, then your very lives themselves. Joe already has turned the thin skin of his own son not into a lampshade, but a billboard in advertising to seduce you into followship, not American fellowship. First, he pays empowering the terrorists, then makes us pay to rid us of his mistakes this time in blood. Can’t get worse than this.
inluminatuo: “Can’t get worse than this”……. Oh yes it can!
If fools keep supporting this treasonous, destructive, unethical, immoral, ungodly, demonic Democrat Party. It will get much, much, worse!
First Joe reverses Trump’s ban on financing Hamas via the UN programs disguised as humanitarian, which cost the taxpayer over $300 million/year in terrorist empowerment that since Joe again began refinancing terrorism in apparently just another version of his Bidenomics, it has empowered the terrorists over a BILLION since he came to office,,,, then we have to spend billions in military responses to getting attacked in the middle east by weapons purchased from Iran by Hamas with American taxpayer money Joe gave them. Paying in money is one thing, paying in the blood of our troops is going way beyond just throwing good money after bad, but throwing pure American blood after Bad Biden Democrat executive treason. If the big guy got paid back by the terrorists in blood instead of money, he might consider shutting down his family financial laundromat that cleans out nothing but the treasury of the American people, not to mention the lifeblood of our American military.
DOES anyone need MORE proof for WHY WE need to cut off ALL FUNDING for the useless and feckless UN!??!