{"id":15102,"date":"2024-02-05T00:46:15","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T00:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/05\/jake-sullivan-doesnt-rule-out-us-strikes-inside-iran-but-insists-biden-not-looking-to-get-into-a-war\/"},"modified":"2024-02-05T00:46:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T00:46:15","slug":"jake-sullivan-doesnt-rule-out-us-strikes-inside-iran-but-insists-biden-not-looking-to-get-into-a-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/05\/jake-sullivan-doesnt-rule-out-us-strikes-inside-iran-but-insists-biden-not-looking-to-get-into-a-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Sullivan doesn\u2019t rule out US strikes inside Iran but insists Biden \u2018not looking to get into a war\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

National security adviser Jake Sullivan declined to rule out U.S. strikes inside Iran on Sunday, while still insisting President Biden is \u2018not looking to get into a war\u2019 in the Middle East.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sullivan appeared on Sunday programs on CNN, ABC and NBC days after the United States and the United Kingdom began launching a massive airstrike campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Friday as part of retaliation for the killing of three U.S. service members and the injuring of more than 40 others in Jordan along the Syrian border.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The president has approached this with a straightforward principle, which is that the United States will step up and respond when our forces are attacked. And the United States also is not looking for a wider war in the Middle East. We are not looking to take the United States to war. So we are going to continue to pursue a policy that goes down both of those lines simultaneously, that responds with force and clarity, as we did on Friday night, but also that continues to hew to an approach that does not get the United States pulled into a war, that we have seen too frequently in the Middle East,\u2019 Sullivan told CNN\u2019s Dana Bash on \u2018State of the Union.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sullivan vowed \u2018further action,\u2019 but said he would refrain from telegraphing the United States\u2019 punches in the conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Inside Iran? Would you rule that out at this point?\u2019 Bash asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2018Look, sitting on a national TV program, I\u2019m not going to rule in and rule out any activity anywhere. What I am going to say is that the president will do what he thinks needs to be done and again, reinforce the point that he\u2019s going to defend our forces, and also that he is not looking to get into a war,\u2019 Sullivan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bash noted Republican criticism that the Biden administration should have responded before the three U.S. casualties given there have been more than 150 attacks on U.S. troops since Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018We have responded multiple times, before the tragic events of a few days ago. We have struck targets in both Iraq and Syria,\u2019 Sullivan said. \u2018We have gone against IRGC and militia-linked facilities in both Iraq and Syria. We have taken out a militia leader in Iraq. So the notion that we have not responded is just incorrect. Second point I would make, is that I didn\u2019t hear these same voices, which to me sound mostly like political voices, saying that when American service members were tragically killed by these same militias in the previous administration. This is a challenging, difficult issue. It has been for every president over the past 20 years, and every president has sought to defend American forces.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iran, meanwhile, issued a warning Sunday to the U.S. over potentially targeting two cargo ships in the Middle East, the Behshad and Saviz, long suspected of serving as a forwarding operating base for Iranian commandos, signaling Tehran\u2019s growing unease over the U.S. strikes in recent days in Iraq, Syria and Yemen targeting militias backed by the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

Appearing on ABC\u2019s \u2018This Week,\u2019 Sullivan said \u2018the central purpose of the strikes has been to take away capabilities from the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria that are attacking our forces, and from the Houthis that continue to threaten Red Sea shipping, and we believe they had good effect in reducing degrading the capabilities of the militias and of the Houthis.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018This was the beginning of our response. There will be more steps,\u2019 Sullivan told ABC\u2019s George Stephanopoulos. \u2018Some of those steps will be seen, some may not be seen, but there will be more action taken to respond to the death and the tragic death of the three brave U.S. service members. And we cannot rule out that there will be further attacks from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, or from the Houthis. We have to be clear-eyed about that. And the president, in being clear-eyed about that, has told his military commanders that they need to be positioned to respond to further attacks as well.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sullivan, appearing on NBC\u2019s \u2018Meet the Press,\u2019 also responded to criticism from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has contended Biden\u2019s administration has been appeasing Iran.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018I find it somewhat strange. The president made clear before we were attacked in Tower 22 in Jordan, before our brave service members were tragically killed, that if we were attacked, we would respond,\u2019 Sullivan said. \u2018So Iran and its militia groups knew that the United States was going to respond.\u00a0We think that those strikes had good effects. So, of course, there will always be armchair quarterbacks, but we are confident in the steps that we have taken so far, and we are confident in the course that we are on going forward.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson hit back, appearing later on during the same program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018I do take issue with a little bit of what Jake Sullivan just said. I listened to that interview. It was interesting. We need to make absolutely clear to Iran that nothing is off the table.\u00a0We should not be appeasing Iran,\u2019 Johnson told NBC host Kristen Welker. \u2018That\u2019s what the Biden administration has been doing for the last three years. We are projecting weakness on the world stage. And frankly, Kristen, that is why our adversaries are acting so provocatively. What we need to be doing right now is turning up the heat on Iran.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National security adviser Jake Sullivan declined to rule out U.S. strikes inside Iran on Sunday, while still insisting President Biden is \u2018not looking to get into a war\u2019 in the Middle East.\u00a0 Sullivan appeared on Sunday programs on CNN, ABC and NBC days after the United States and the United Kingdom began launching a massive <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":15103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}