Former CENTCOM commander, retired Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, told "Face the Nation" on Sunday to "certainly" expect Israel to strike Iranian targets.
Speaking to CBS News host Margaret Brennan on the list of potential Iranian targets Israel could strike, such as the military, their "nuclear program," or their oil infrastructure, McKenzie framed that a response from the Jewish state was a certainty.
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"Israel has a lot of choices here," McKenzie said. "They can choose for something that would be very escalatory in terms of a strike against the supreme leader himself perhaps or against the nuclear program or against the oil infrastructure, or they could look at military intelligence targets. They have a wide variety of options that they can choose from. They have the capability to execute most of those attacks.
"I will say this," he added, "the nuclear target is a very difficult target. It's large and complex. I held the plans for that when I was the Central Command commander. I'm very familiar with it. There are a lot of other alternatives to that target that perhaps you could go after first, then hold that in case you get into an escalatory ladder with the Iranians.
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"But the Israelis are certainly going to hit back. And I predict it will be larger than the very restrained, very modulated response that we saw in April after the first large Iranian attack on Israel."
President Joe Biden said he would not be in favor of Israel striking Iran's nuclear program. However, earlier on "Face the Nation," the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, seemingly disagreed with Biden.
"It's completely irresponsible for the president to say that it is off the table when he's previously said it's on the table."
Responding to a question from Brennan, McKenzie echoed Turner's earlier response, stating, "you should never take a potential target off the menu."
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Nick Koutsobinas ✉
Nick Koutsobinas, a Newsmax writer, has years of news reporting experience. A graduate from Missouri State University’s philosophy program, he focuses on exposing corruption and censorship.
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