TEHRAN - The administration of President Joe Bide has tried to distance itself from harsh rhetoric by Congressional Republican leaders and allied hawks who demand the U.S. carry out strikes against Iran. 

They have been exerting pressure on the White House to take action against Iran since the weekend’s deadly drone attack on a U.S. military outpost in Jordan that was conducted by an Iraqi resistance group.

Officials across the Biden administration have insisted that the White House will respond to the attack but does not want the situation to escalate.

“We certainly don’t seek a war and frankly we don’t see Iran wanting to seek a war with the United States,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters. She added that the Pentagon believed Iran did not want a war either.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby also said Washington is not seeking a military conflict with Iran. 

“We do not seek another war. We do not seek to escalate. But we will absolutely do what is required,” Kirby said. 

Kirby’s comments came following sharp rebukes from GOP figures. 

“Hit Iran now. Hit them hard,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said. 

Republican Senator Tom Cotton also made a blistering attack on Biden.

“He left our troops as sitting ducks,” Cotton said, calling for “devastating military retaliation” against Iran. 

Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, took a step further calling for strikes against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is a branch of Iran’s military and played a key role in helping Iraqi and Syrian armies defeat the Daesh terror group. 

However, some Democratic senators criticized Republicans’ warmongering approach and urged caution. 

“To the chicken hawks calling for war with Iran, you’re playing into the enemy’s hands — and I’d like to see you send your sons and daughters to fight. We must have an effective, strategic response on our terms and our timeline. Deterrence is hard; war is worse,” Congressman Seth Moulton said in a statement. 

Amid mounting pressure on Biden to respond to the Jordan drone attack, the Pentagon is considering options on the table. President Biden said on Wednesday that his administration has made up its mind about how to respond to the Jordan attack but he didn't offer more details about the decision. 

According to U.S. media, striking Iranian personnel in Syria or Iraq or Iranian naval assets in the Persian Gulf are among these options. 

Iran reaction

Iranian sources have told Al Jazeera that the Islamic Republic considers any attacks on its territory as a red line that would be met with an appropriate response.

They have also told the Qatari news outlet that Iran does not want war with the U.S, but it will forcefully confront any American adventurism. 

Iranian military officials have already warned that any attacks on Iran would be met with a crushing response. 

Iran has proved that it pulls no punches when it comes to preserving national sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

It was in June 2019 that Iran shot down an intruding American spy drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.

At that time, the IRGC said the U.S.-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its Air Force after the aircraft violated Iranian airspace.

On January 8, 2020, the IRGC also hit the Ain al-Asad base, which houses U.S. military forces in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, with a wave of missile attacks. 
The strike was carried out in retaliation for the U.S. assassination of Lieutenant General Qassim Soleimani, commander of the IRGC Quds Force, near the Iraqi capital Baghdad days earlier. 

The U.S. is fully aware that if it wanted to strike Iran, it would be drawn into a direct military confrontation with the country.  

The U.S. can begin a war on Iran but it won’t be the side that will be able to end it.

Israel’s brutal war on the Gaza Strip that began on October 7 is the root cause of the ongoing escalation in West Asia.  

If the U.S. is interested in de-escalation, as White House officials claim, it must exert pressure on Tel Aviv to put a halt to its war on Gaza.

But, in practice, Washington’s unwavering military and political support for Israel has led to the spillover of the war into other parts of the region. 

The U.S. has not only provided a huge amount of weapons to Israel, but has also hampered efforts at the UN Security Council aimed at establishing a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. 

The Biden administration has vowed a range of response options to deter attacks against U.S. bases while also not further inflaming a smoldering region. 

This seems a clear contradiction. 

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza nearly four months ago, resistance groups have carried out more than 150 strikes against U.S. military bases and forces. The drone attack near Jordan’s border with Syria also marked the first known time U.S. soldiers have been killed due to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. 

Undoubtedly, American troops and military facilities will come under increasing attacks if Washington intensifies its strikes against resistance groups. 

Consequently, the conflict will get out of control and the U.S. will be dragged into a wider war, which will engulf the entire region.

U.S. hawks are egging on the Biden administration to widen the scope of attacks on regional resistance groups and directly hit Iran.

Some of them like Cotton say Biden would be a coward unworthy of being commander-in-chief if he does not fulfill their demands. 

Such sorts of pressure have put Biden in a situation as if the president feels he has been caught between a rock and a hard place.  

Regional axis of resistance, like the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, links their attacks on U.S. bases to Washington’s backing of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

These groups along with the Ansarullah movement in Yemen have stressed that if Israel stops its war on the besieged Palestinian territory, the region will witness de-escalation.

As a result, the U.S. should come to its senses and force Israel to end its onslaught on Gaza. Otherwise, American forces will continue to bear the brunt of the warmongering strategies of their politicians and the Israeli regime. 

By Shahrokh Saei