Amid Mideast tensions, Senator Lindsey Graham called on Wednesday for a much harsher approach towards Tehran, suggesting that the US should bomb the IRGC inside Iran.
“I've been saying [this] for six months now,” Graham said on Fox News, “hit Iran. They have oil fields out in the open. They have a Revolutionary Guard headquarters you can see from space. Blow it off the map.”
The Republican Senator's tough position regarding Iran is nothing new. It is serious, however, since it follows a few days of unmistakable escalation in the face off between Israel and the US on one side and Hamas, Iran and its regional allies on the other.
Since Monday, Israel has killed Iran’s top man in Syria; Iran-backed militias have targeted US bases in Iraq, wounding three soldiers, one critically; Yemen Houthis have launched multiple attacks in the Red Sea, forcing the American fleet to shoot down at least 17 drones and missiles; and the US has struck Iran-affiliated positions in Iraq.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden sent a letter to top Congressional leaders explaining his decision to strike back in Iraq, immediately after it was confirmed that a US serviceman had been critically injured.
"The strikes were intended to degrade and disrupt the ongoing series of attacks against the United States and our partners,” Biden said, “and to deter Iran and Iran-backed militia groups from conducting or supporting further attacks on United States personnel and facilities."
But this is not a response that would satisfy Biden’s Republican critics in the Congress.
“The Biden administration is failing our troops in the field,” said Senator Graham, who is a member of the influential Senate Armed Services Committee. “If you really want to protect American soldiers, make it real to the Ayatollah, you attack a soldier through proxy, we're coming after you.”
Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have targeted US forces more than a hundred times since mid-October. So far, no American soldier has been killed. With every attack, however, criticism of Biden’s policy on Iran has become more extensive and harsher.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley pilloried Biden in a TV interview Wednesday.
“Getting out of Obama's Iran deal sent a message to Iran that America meant business,” she said, hailing Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Iran. “Joe Biden falling all over himself to get back into the deal sent a message to Iran that it could walk all over America.”
Haley is one of the more vocal critics of Biden’s Iran policy, not surprising as she aims to be the Republican running against him next year. The current crisis in the Middle East will likely be a central theme in the 2024 campaign, especially since no end is in sight for the war in Gaza or attacks by Iran's proxies.
On Wednesday, Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s emergency war cabinet, hinted at another war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“If the world and the Lebanese government don’t act in order to prevent the firing on Israel’s northern residents, and to distance Hezbollah from the border, the IDF will do it,” Ganz said in a press conference.
Hezbollah is widely believed to be the strongest non-state actor in the region, with an estimated arsenal of more than a hundred thousand missiles. A full-blown war with the group would see thousands added to the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since early October.