Biden Begins the Spin on the Iran Attack

It's always someone else's fault when things go south. 

By Dave Patterson  @ Liberty Nation News  Apr 16, 2024 | Articles, Military Affairs, Opinion

There is a new metric for a small increment of time. Forget the nanosecond. The new measure is the minuscule unit of time between President Joe Biden saying something of questionable veracity and a White House spin master hitting the airwaves for clean-up.

Biden Response Falters

So it was when national security spokesman John Kirby tried to smooth out the mess Biden made in the aftermath of the Iranian air assault on Israel. America’s chief executive told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Jewish nation, having just escaped a catastrophic onslaught of 170 attack drones, 30 cruise missiles, and 110 ballistic missiles, should take it as a win and not retaliate. Biden’s policy of appeasing Iran has created a permissive environment that has emboldened Tehran to believe it can do whatever it cares to without consequences.

Nonetheless, Kirby inexplicably told Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday:

“It’s hard to look at what President Biden has done with respect to Iran and say he hasn’t been tough on Iran, we haven’t put pressure on them … It was the previous administration that decided to get us out of the Iran deal and now Iran is so much dramatically closer to potentially a nuclear weapon capability than before Mr. Trump was elected.”

In other words, it’s former President Donald Trump’s fault. If that’s true, then whatever the Biden team has done since it came to office has failed – and miserably. Blaming Trump at this point is a tacit admission of the White House’s incompetence in ensuring stability in the Middle East. And matters in that part of the world seem quite worse.

The Trump administration did withdraw from the flawed Barack Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, claiming it did nothing to reduce or curtail Tehran’s development of long- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Such missiles were used to attack Israel on April 13.

But Kirby pointed his finger in another direction, too. He blamed China for not using its influence to keep Iran from attacking Israel.

“China should do more in terms of the Middle East, in terms of [the] relationship they have with Tehran. And yes, we’ve asked them to use that influence to a positive effect,” Kirby offered. China doing more in the Middle East to reduce tensions may be the most worrying indictment of Biden’s foreign policy. The United States should not want China to be an influential force in the Gulf region or anywhere else for that matter. Relying on the Chinese Communist Party to smooth tensions in the Middle East in no way results in “a positive effect” for America.

Israel Will Preserve Deterrence Against Iran

The Biden White House apparently believes it is neither prudent nor safe for Israel to assert its sovereignty and respond to the drone and missile barrage from Iran. According to The Times of Israel’s recent reporting on a statement from the Israeli war cabinet:

“The response will be designed to send the message that Israel ‘will not allow an attack of that magnitude against it to pass without a reaction’ … [And] will also be designed to make plain that Israel will not allow the Iranians to ‘establish the equation’ they have sought to assert in recent days. This appears to be a reference to Iran’s warning that future Israeli strikes on Iranian territory, including its international diplomatic premises, will henceforth again be met by Iranian retaliatory strikes on Israel.”

The Biden administration’s definition of deterrence remains unclear, since it is not working. “To suggest a country can launch over 300 missiles and drones and have no consequence … remember Iranians [are] learning from this; the Chinese are learning from this; Russians are learning from it; if the message is the United States will help defensively but, by the way, you will suffer no costs, you are asking for more attacks,” as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich summed up the situation on Fox Business.

Despite the spin and the contrary arguments, President Biden has been unprepared for the crisis in the Middle East. Indeed, his actions may have inadvertently enabled it. When countries as malevolent as Iran perceive weakness, they exploit it. Unfortunately, it seems the US national security leadership doesn’t understand that.

The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.

 

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Biden Warned Iran, but They Hit Israel Anyway – So Now What?

By Dave Patterson @ Liberty Nation News Apr 15, 2024,  Tags: Articles, Military Affairs, Opinion 

When asked what his counsel would be to Iran regarding an expected revenge attack on Israel, President Joe Biden turned to the television cameras with steely, resolute eyes and warned: “Don’t.” Well, Iran did. In fact, Iran attacked Israel with force, launching a reported 320 attack drones, cruise, and ballistic missiles. So, what happens now?

The bombardment was not unexpected. As Liberty Nation explained, “Tehran’s leaders threatened to attack Israel this week in retaliation for the Israel Defense Force (IDF) killing one of their top generals. Now the dreaded strike has finally come. Iran reportedly launched more than 300 drones and missiles toward Israel – though the IDF says 99% of them were intercepted.” What comes next? Well, if you thought President Biden would back Israel in a counterstrike, you would be wrong. But if you knew anything about Biden and his feckless worldview, you wouldn’t have expected that anyway.

Israel Cannot Rely on Biden

Just hours after Iran’s bombardment of Israel, Biden let Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu know that the ironclad support we hear so much about was not that solid. Politico reported, “President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States will not join an offensive counterstrike on Iran should Israel choose that road after Tehran attacked it this weekend, according to two people familiar with the conversation.” Government officials are talking all over Washington, DC, counseling Israel to use restraint.

During the same phone call regarding the success of Israel’s air defense – which intercepted nearly all of Iran’s aerial weapons – Biden reportedly told Netanyahu: “You got a win. Take the win.” That is precisely the narrow, myopic understanding of what took place in the skies over Israel that Americans have come to expect from the current White House resident.

In an interview with CNN, John Bolton, national security advisor under former President Donald Trump, posited that the Iran attack was evidence of a failure of Israeli and US deterrence. Furthermore, it was a blessing that only one percent of the missiles got through.

“The way you establish deterrence is by telling your adversary if you ever tried that again, the price you pay will be so much higher than any gain you think you can get” Bolton explained. “You shouldn’t even think about it.”

However, while pundits and media wonks are opining about the immediate geopolitical effects of the Iran attack, more consequential questions must be considered. The missile and drone barrage did no significant damage – this time. “But what happens if the next attack comes all at once from Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria as well as Iran?” The Wall Street Journal editorial board asked. To be more successful next time, what did the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) learn from this attack? Perhaps in addition to showing bravado in avenging the death of one of their generals, the purpose was to test how effective the Israeli defense was. Iran now knows what a state-of-the-art air defense looks like.

No One Is Asking the More Important Questions

Israel’s integrated, layered air defense is in-depth with anti-aircraft systems that include long-range interceptions by F-15, F-16, and F-35 fighters that can take down incoming threats at significant range. Drones, missiles, short-range rockets, or even 155 mm artillery shells posing a threat will be engaged by one of the ten Iron Dome anti-aircraft systems, which have a range of 43 miles and are located strategically throughout Israel.

 

To defeat medium-range threats, Israel has deployed David’s Sling, a two-stage anti-missile and anti-aircraft system with a range of 160 miles. The early version of Arrow 2 and the latest Arrow 3 missile systems are uniquely capable of high-altitude intercepts of ballistic missiles like those launched at Israel from Yemen. “The latter [Arrow 3] made its combat debut on Nov. 9 when it intercepted a Houthi missile in what was described as the first time ‘the world had ever seen a battle fought in space,’” Forbes reported. Currently in development, a new system will rely on lasers to destroy incoming threats. Reports are the system will be called Iron Beam. The Israeli air defense systems are integrated and coordinated to be the most efficient at killing incoming airborne threats. As significant as the anti-air missiles systems are, Israel demonstrated that when under attack it could integrate the participating US, UK, and Jordanian fighter aircraft into the air battle. That is a major achievement in command, control, and communications.

After the Iranians threw a canopy of drones, cruise, and ballistic missiles at Israel with a one percent effectiveness rate, the IRGC knows that a barrage of 320 is not enough to overwhelm a sophisticated air defense. Many of the Iranian drones had navigation lights brightly shining. That’s not what you would do if you wanted to ensure the drones hit their targets. Commentators were confused on this point, as it made them much easier to see and shoot down. But if Iran were trying to determine precisely what level of air defense the Israelis would use, making the targets easier to see and engage would more likely prompt the desired response. It would have been a useful tactic.

Should Iran achieve nuclear weapon status, that one percent of 600 or 1,000 missiles or drones with atomic warheads might be enough. But lost in all the jabbering out of Washington, DC, about the significance of the Iranian attack and how Israel should show restraint is any mention of who else benefits. China, Russia, and North Korea now have real-time, empirical data they never had before. They understand it will take more than 320 aerial weapons with conventional warheads of different types to defeat the latest multi-layered and integrated air defense system. They also know what tactics for using the weapons didn’t work. What could be more valuable to America’s enemies?

So, what happens now? Israel will likely take the Biden administration’s counsel to “take the win” about as seriously as Iran took the president’s “don’t.”

The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.

 

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Launched from Iran, Made in America

Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog 

 

On Saturday night, Iran launched its attack, codenamed “Ya Rasool Allah” or “Messenger of Allah”, on the Jewish State, after Israel had taken out the Iranian mastermind of Oct 7.

The attack began with waves of drones to swamp Israel’s air defenses, followed by cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. While the British and the French took out some drones, U.S. forces accounted for about half the total of drones and some of the ballistic missiles, leaving the rest for the Israelis to deal with. By the time it was over, 99% of the attack had been intercepted.

The only serious injury in the “Messenger of Allah” bombardment was to a 7-year-old Muslim Bedouin girl.

But why was Iran able to launch so many missiles at all, how did everyone know when the attack would happen, and why is Biden warning Israel not to respond to the Iranian attack?

Last month, the Biden administration provided a $10 billion sanctions waiver for Iran. The administration warned Iran that it would impose sanctions on its missile program if it sent them to Russia. There was no mention of the real focus of those sanctions which was concern that Iran would provide those weapons to proxy terror groups like Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite militias and the Houthis, now using those weapons to attack civilian container ships and US Navy vessels.

Iran should never have had that weapons technology in the first place. In 2006, the Bush administration had convinced the UN Security Council to sanction Iran’s missile program “to prevent the supply, sale or transfer …of all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology which could contribute to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”

Part of Obama’s Iran Deal allowed those sanctions to expire on October 18, 2023. Two weeks after the Oct 7 attacks on Israel which killed over 1,000 people, the Biden administration let the UN sanctions lapse, making it easier for Iran to buy, export and boost its development of weapons technology. The administration tried to substitute a limited sanctions program of its own for the original sanctions while continuing to allow Iran to access billions in sanctions relief.

Where the Trump administration had snapped back sanctions for Iran’s violations, Biden lifted them a month after taking office. Sen. Ted Cruz has estimated that the Biden administration allowed around $100 billion to flow to Iran since 2021. That $10 billion was just the latest of it.

Despite the open violations of the Iran Deal, Biden allowed Iran to benefit from an agreement it was actively violating every single day even as it was attacking American soldiers and Israel.

When Biden allowed Iran that latest $10 billion in sanctions relief, not only were US Navy personnel actively in combat with Iran’s Houthi terrorists, but two Navy SEALS had died in an operation to intercept Iranian weapons being smuggled from Somalia to the Houthis in Yemen. In Jordan, an attack by Iran’s Shiite militias operating out of Iraq had killed three American servicemembers. While Biden appeared willing to let Iran get away with it, Israel was not.

As General Mohammad Zahedi and other figures from Iran’s IRGC international terror network were meeting in a building near Iran’s terror facility in Damascus, they were taken out. After his death, Iranian sources named Zahedi as the mastermind of the Oct 7 attacks.

What followed were a series of back-channel communications between the Biden administration and Iran through various third parties. The goal of these negotiations was to persuade Iran not to “escalate” the conflict by limiting its attack to what a Reuters report described as “within certain limits.” The timing of the attack was so widely known that media reports correctly repeated warnings that Iran would strike within 36 hours. Hours before the attack began, not only Iran’s allies, but also other countries in the region, were already prepared for it to begin.

Instead of making clear to Iran that an attack was unacceptable, the Biden administration was pre-arranging the terms of the attack on one of its allies while warning it not to respond.

When Iran launched the attack, it had been coordinated with Biden officials. Had it really wanted to launch a damaging assault, it would have changed the timing of the attack. Instead it not only launched the attack on time, but it did so while communicating with D.C. through backchannels before and after the attack. A Biden administration official stated that there were “direct communications through the Swiss channel” including to tell the Biden administration when the attack was winding down.

That is not how attacks normally work, but this was not a normal attack, nor is it the actual one.

Iran launched the attack to demonstrate its capabilities. For the first time it showed that it could coordinate missile and drone launches from all of its clients across the region. The launches took place not only from Iran, but from the Houthis in Yemen, Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The attacks allowed Iran to test a coordinated assault across four countries, to test how Israeli and American air defenses would respond to being swarmed, and to score a propaganda victory with images of its drones over Jerusalem and that part of the Temple Mount where Muslim invaders had built their Al Aqsa mosque. What it was not meant to do was be devastating.

Iran would have rejoiced if it had hammered Israeli air bases and cities, but barring critical errors by Israel and America, it wasn’t expecting more than an expensive light show and a little rubble.

Compare the Iranian attack on Israel with the finely coordinated attack on Tower 22, the U.S. base on the Jordanian-Iranian border, where the Iraqi Shiite terror proxies had perfectly timed the attack to coincide with a moment of confusion caused by the return of a U.S. drone, or the Oct 7 attack which set out to analyze and dismantle Israel’s border defense network, timing drone attacks to disable automated defenses, with this straightforward telegraphed attack.

If Iran remains true to form, the actual attack will come from its proxies, will exploit vulnerabilities in Israeli defenses and will allow the regime to maintain plausible deniability as it did on Oct 7.

What happened on Saturday night was not the actual attack, but a feint with the added purpose of convincing the Biden administration that its diplomatic approach can work. Beginning with the Iran Deal, the Islamic terror state has played a complicated game, welcoming diplomacy and then abruptly rejecting it, holding out hope and then taking it away, but only doing it long enough to keep up the chase. This time around, Tehran convinced Biden that its Islamic leadership, despite their cries of, “Death to America” are rational actors who want to manage the conflict.

In the two years before Oct 7, Hamas convinced the Biden administration and the Israelis that it could be dealt with before launching a devastating assault, so too Iran, like other Islamic terrorist entities, specializes in luring America into a state of complacency before an attack.

And so the Biden administration is warning Israel not to respond. After all these years it believes that Iran can be dealt with and that it successfully negotiated an end to the crisis. It allowed Iran to launch its attack on Israel, helped intercept it and foolishly believes that Tehran is now satisfied because all its leaders ever wanted, like Biden, was a show, not the real thing.

Biden thinks that when Iran’s elites chant, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”, it’s as empty a slogan as all of his campaign promises. But, unlike Biden, Iran’s leaders keep their promises. The slogans are serious. They intend to destroy America and they intend to destroy Israel.

American soldiers continue dying at the hands of Iran and its terror proxies while D.C. diplomats conduct empty negotiations and Iran’s agents penetrate their way into our government.

After September 11, Biden suggested, “this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran.” Since then billions of dollars have made their way to Iran. The Islamic terror state has killed and kidnapped Americans, it is encircling America’s allies in the region, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, and still the ‘no strings’ checks keep coming from D.C.

 

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

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Israel Proves Missile Defense, Long Mocked by Left, Works in War

By IRA STOLL, Special to the Sun | May 25, 2021

 

 

 The concept of missile defense, long mocked by mainstream journalists, was a big winner in the recent combat between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group. Prime Minister Netanyahu underscored that in remarks this morning with Secretary of State Blinken at Jerusalem, Israel, thanking Mr. Blinken for “replenishments of Iron Dome interceptors that saved civilian lives.” Mr. Blinken replied, “we had a detailed discussion about Israel’s security needs, including replenishing Iron Dome.” President Biden made a similar point Thursday evening from the White House............To Read More.....