The president’s kid-gloves approach to enemies in the Middle East was ripped by a conservative senator fearing a “mass casualty attack” on our forces if we fall short of “massive retaliation.”
“Life in the Middle East is not a church picnic.”
(Video: Fox News)
Hostage negotiations and releasing funds to terrorist-backing regimes have only been part of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy approach to ongoing hostilities. Joining Fox News host Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday,” Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (R) fleshed out how much worse the portrait of failed leadership was as he touched on how the U.S. has responded to dozens of attacks from Iran and their proxies.
Bream presented concerns about America getting further drawn into the war between Israel and Hamas when the legislator made clear that over 150 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East under Biden’s watch, including more than 70 in just the last month were proof we were already deeply involved.
“We’ve only hit back a few times,” he lamented on that point. “When we do hit back, it’s almost always at empty proxy warehouses or maybe proxy forces in Iraq and Syria.”
Challenging Biden’s priorities, Cotton suggested, “It seems like the president wants to go out of his way to avoid Iranian casualties.” He then noted how he “would target Iranians who are operating in Iraq and in Syria. I would also send a clear message to Iran if these attacks don’t stop immediately, then we’ll begin to threaten their assets.”
With a reference to the late Sean Connery’s Oscar-winning role in the 1987 film “The Untouchables” wherein the actor’s character Malone coached Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness on “the Chicago way” and how to snare Al Capone — “he sends one of yours to the hospital you send one of his to the morgue” — the Arkansas senator suggested that is precisely how matters are handled in the Middle East; a reality seemingly beyond the president routinely caught kowtowing to the Islamists in power.
“What Ronald Reagan did when he sank half of Iran’s navy, it didn’t lead to an open, outright war,” reminded Cotton of the 80s “peace through strength” strategy that ultimately led to the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War. “It — in fact it ended the Iran-Iraq war which had been waging for more than 8 years because Iran was so scared of Ronald Reagan.”
“After Donald Trump directed the killing of Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, Iran’s terrorist mastermind, Iran pulled in its horns for the rest of the Trump era,” he added of the most recent application of the same strategy. “The way to stop these attacks is not be fearful and hesitant and cautious in a response, but massive retaliation to make it clear we will not tolerate these attacks on Americans.”
“Otherwise, I fear we’re gonna see a mass casualty attack against American forces in the region,” the lawmaker cautioned to Bream.
Earlier in November, The New York Times had reported that while U.S. officials had blamed Iran and their ilk for attacks on American forces, “President Biden had in recent weeks rejected more aggressive bombing options proposed by the Pentagon out of fear of provoking a wider conflict with Iran.”
“Republican critics in Congress and some air power advocates have said a narrow White House response has only invited more frequent and more dangerous attacks against U.S. troops in the region,” added the Times.
Questioned on the long-term impacts of such an aggressive pushback on the terrorist-backing regime, Cotton asserted, “Life in the Middle East is not a church picnic.”
“What you need more than anything is iron will and crushing force,” he continued, “and what I fear most threatens American interest and stability in the region is American weakness.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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