Spencer Brown | TownHall | April 12, 2024
AP Photo/John Raoux
“We’ve lost the bubble, we’ve lost deterrence.” That’s the assessment of former CIA director-turned-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo regarding the state of play in the Middle East as an Iranian attack on Israel is feared within 48 hours.
As the former senior member of the Trump cabinet explained in an interview with Martha MacCallum on Fox News Channel’s “The Story” Friday afternoon, it didn’t have to — and shouldn’t — be this way.
“Iranians already attacked Israel on October 7,” Pompeo noted of the nonexistent deterrence that saw Iran’s proxy Hamas invade Israel and kill the most Jews in any single day since the Holocaust. That attack and the current threat against Israel is more proof of Biden’s “continuation of a failed policy to protect Israel.”
Worse than merely failing to deter Iranian attacks on Israel, Pompeo said President Biden and his administration’s statements in recent days have given Tehran a green light to keep up its attacks.
When asked about the sobering threat against Israel on Friday, Biden’s message to Iran was simply: “don’t.” But that’s not a policy, Pompeo noted. “It’s not even a deterrent.”
The Biden administration’s handling of the Middle East since October 7 only “evinces weakness and fearfulness,” continued Pompeo. What’s more, the White House and Biden administration have accepted the premise of Iran’s threat, one that is incorrect.
“When the Iranians said ‘stay out of this,’ they haven’t left us out,” Pompeo corrected. What Biden’s statements turn a blind eye to are the attacks by Iran-backed terrorists targeting U.S. service members on the Red Sea, in Iraq, and elsewhere with deadly consequences. Yet Biden’s response to such attacks — not to mention the fact that American citizens are still being held by Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza — have not demonstrated strength and certainly have not provided a deterring effect.
Inexplicably, with his latest comments, Biden has given “a green light” to the Iranian regime that has made very clear it wants to destroy the United States, known as the “Great Satan” to Iran, as well as Israel.
After all, if the Biden administration has failed to project deterrence to prevent attacks on Israel, what deterrence would there be to prevent more or escalating attacks on American troops, facilities, and interests? Calling the threat of an Iranian attack on American targets in the region “very real,” Pompeo underscored that “getting deterrence back once you’ve lost it is incredibly difficult.”
Especially so, he continued, after Biden began “to talk about ‘well, we’re not going to do anything to the Iranians,’ that’s a green light,” Pompeo warned. Invoking an airplane metaphor, he said “the perception from the Iranians grows that they can move about the cabin freely.”
That perception and Iran’s known actions as a result of Biden’s lack of deterrence are alarming enough. But what of Iran and its proxies actions that we don’t yet have a picture of? “Who knows who the Iranians may have moved inside of our country,” Pompeo pondered, pointing to the border crisis. “I fear it may just be way too late, and that weakness has already been demonstrated.”
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