It is unclear if President Joe Biden has the commitment to carry out the type of sustained strikes against Iranian-backed groups that will be necessary to establish deterrence, former CIA analyst and America First Policy Institute senior fellow Fred Fleitz told Newsmax on Monday.
Fleitz acknowledged to "Wake Up America" that the retaliatory strikes in response to the deaths of three American servicemen killed in an attack in Jordan a week ago were a good beginning, but said that he is "skeptical ultimately that it will be enough unless it is a very sustained campaign, but I don't know that Joe Biden has the commitment to do that."
Fleitz said that "if you were to ask any national security official, they would state that the purpose of these U.S. attacks is to deter future attacks on American troops or on shipping in the Red Sea, but this is not really about imposing deterrence, it's about restoring deterrence. It's restoring American deterrence that was lost after months of inaction."
He emphasized that due to very minimal U.S. responses until now, "it will be a substantial effort to convince these Iran-backed proxy groups to stop attacking the United States and shipping after they've been emboldened by months of inaction."
Fleitz added that "we will see over the next couple of days if this is working, but I am skeptical that this is going to be enough."
He also pointed out that "I am very worried about this talk that an attack on Iran is still on the table. That might be necessary, but I want to make sure that if Biden is thinking about attacking Iran or sinking Iranian ships, he has to go to Congress to get an authorization that is required under the War Powers Act."
Fleitz stressed that, "frankly, I don't trust this president to go to war against Iran without congressional input."
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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