Last week, three American troops were killed in an Iranian-backed drone strike in Jordan. It was a damning indictment of Joe Biden’s record of appeasing Iran, which dates back to his time as vice president.
Biden has been talking tough with Iran for many, many weeks, and Iran has repeatedly proven that it is not deterred by his words. But the moment troops were killed, Biden was suddenly under pressure to respond with more than just idle threats. And he did promise a response.
And then promptly broadcast those plans to Iran.
Sources within the administration leaked the details of potential moves by the administration to Politico.
“Within the administration, top aides are trying to thread a needle,” Jonathan Lemire and Alexander Ward of Politico reported Monday night. “Biden is ordering his advisers to present a range of U.S. response options that would forcefully deter other attacks while also not further inflaming a smoldering region, according to two officials granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about private deliberations.”
For our VIPs: Joe Biden Has Even More Blood on His Hands
According to the report, “Among the options on the table for the Pentagon: striking Iranian personnel in Syria or Iraq or Iranian naval assets in the Persian Gulf, according to the officials. The Iranian government, for its part, has suggested that a strike on Iran itself would be a red line. The officials suggested that, once the president gave the go-ahead, the retaliation would likely begin in the next couple of days and come in waves against a range of targets.”
The administration subsequently leaked which targets had been approved.
The only thing Biden didn’t do was ask the Iranian mullahs for permission to drop a few bombs—though perhaps they did and were wise enough to keep that under wraps.
It was clear that despite Biden’s public front about retaliation, his administration was never serious about retaliating or creating an effective deterrence—otherwise, they wouldn’t have broadcast to the world what the potential targets were.
And naturally, Iran saw the ol’ “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” from Biden and responded accordingly.
According to Fox News’ chief national security correspondent at the Pentagon, Jennifer Griffin, IRGC commanders in the target areas have left and gone into hiding.
And all of those IRGC commanders have already left Syria and gone into hiding leaving those bases. The Pentagon usually does not telegraph so much if it wants the element of surprise. https://t.co/mdrUPz8otp
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) February 1, 2024
Of course, it’s quite obvious that the Biden administration never wanted the “element of surprise” at all. Biden has simply been continuing the Obama-era policy of appeasement. Griffin shared a story about Haj Askar, the top commander of the IRGC militia in Syria, who has already fled to Iran in anticipation of U.S. airstrikes targeting Iranian-backed militia locations in the country.
This has played out exactly as expected and exactly as Biden wanted. Iran got the notice it needed to allow Biden to appear to respond to the deaths of three U.S. troops without any meaningful consequences to Iran.