The Daily Signal - Iran-Backed Militants Killed 3 Soldiers. Here's How the US Should Respond

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

President Joe Biden says the U.S. “shall respond” after a drone attack Sunday left three U.S. Army soldiers dead and more than 30 others wounded at a base in Jordan.  Iran-backed militias were reported to be responsible for the deadly drone attack, and in response, Robert Greenway says, the U.S. needs to make Iran “feel the cost” of its actions. (Iran denied any responsibility for the attack.) Greenway, director of the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation, says the attacks will continue if Iran does not feel swift and certain consequences. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.) Greenway, who served on the National Security Council in the Trump administration, says he would advise Biden, first, to “stop paying them [Iran] money. Two, we need to stop paying other governments money that ends up in the hands of perpetrators like Kataib Hezbollah.” And finally, Greenways says, the "[Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] serving officers, the arm of the Iranian government that executes these attacks … need to be attacked, and they need to be held accountable for the attacks.”  Greenway joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to share what we know about the attack on the U.S. base in Jordan and how the Biden administration is likely to respond.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, January 30th. I'm Virginia Allen. Three U.S. soldiers were killed in a drone strike in Jordan over the weekend. Iran-backed militants are responsible for that attack. On Sunday, President Joe Biden said that the U.S. will respond. But what should that response look like? Robert Greenway serves as director of the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation and formerly served on the National Security Council. He joins us here in a moment to answer that question.

Stay tuned for our conversation after this. This is Mike Aleth, the Heritage Foundation. I know how the left and the deep state operate, because I've seen it from the inside. When I was working for the Trump administration, I learned how the left made our lives miserable and how they continued to think they could play by their own rules. Well, now we're taking all of these tricks and tactics

that were deployed against the Trump administration and turning them against the Biden. Biden regime. Through the work of the Oversight Project, we're exposing left for what they are and embarrassing some actors responsible. We're using strategic foias and fearless litigation to force these bureaucrats to deliver documents they'd prefer to never see the light of day. But for our work to be successful, we need patriots like you to stand with us. You can take action now. Visit heritage.org slash oversight to learn more. There's no time to waste.

Heritage Foundation Director of the Allison Center for National Security, Robert Greenway, joins us now. Rob, thank you so much for being with us. Really appreciate it. Always a pleasure. Wish it was under more joyful circumstances. Indeed. Appreciate your expertise on this.

What do we know about the drone attack that left three U.S. soldiers dead in Jordan and more than 30 others injured? So heading into this weekend, we had already sustained some 150 attacks on our forces, bases and installations in Iraq and Syria combined since mid-October. So this trend, as everyone knows, has been escalating for some time. And what we know is that a drone attack that may have come in below our ability to detect, may also have come in simultaneously with one of our own drones and so avoided detection. And in the end result, though, now is clear that three service members killed, I believe,

from the California National Guard on the Jordanian side of the border of our garrison. in Syria at Atomph, and over 34 wounded and 9 requiring theater medical evacuation, which is about 10% of the 350-person force that rotates in and out of that life support facility on the Jordanian side of the border. And now we're awaiting administration response to see if they're going to confront the real source of this in Iran or that we're going to conduct small-scale attacks against surrogates and proxies that executed the attack, but really are not responsible. What do we know about that base. What kind of work is done there? Why was this a target? So it's a life support base. On the other side of the Syrian border for now many years, there is a civilian displaced person camp called Rookban.

And it has now, I think, some 8,000 Syrians that have fled the civil war that the Assad regime does not want back and prevents aid from being delivered to. The Jordanians are also reluctant to do so because of the threat. They judge it constitutes. And there was a tragic vehicle born. an improvised explosive device perpetrated against the Jordanians just a few years ago. And the U.S. is on the other side of the border to do two things. First is to prosecute the campaign against ISIS from that side of the border. And the second is to monitor the major line of communication that connects Tehran with Beirut, Lebanon. And so the major artery for Iran to flow material to its surrogates and proxies runs through Iraq, Syria, on its way into Lebanon, and ultimately threatens the U.S. and it threatens Israel. And so this base happens to sit perfectly astride it.

And that's the reason it's there. This facility that incurred casualties was a life support facility on the Jordanian side of the border. So logistical support and sustainment for operational troops on the other side of the Syrian side. Okay. Now, like you just mentioned a moment ago, there have been many, many attacks directed at U.S. facilities since that October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel. What was different about this attack? Because this is the first one that took American life. Well, so really, mathematically, we've been playing against the odds for too long.

It's a miracle that we have not lost American service members to attacks up to this point. We had one fatalities, a heart attack or a contractor resulted from an attack, and about 63 wounded, mostly traumatic brain injury from concussions because of the rockets or missiles. But this is the first time we've had fatalities directly attributed to the missiles, rocket or drone attack. And what makes this different is now that we have three service members that have been killed, the administration is forced to confront. It's policy that got us to this point. And the Biden administration, President Biden himself, has said that the U.S. shall respond. What does that mean? Well, they've said, unfortunately, all too often that they'll respond at a time and place

to their choosing. They won't tolerate attacks. But we have tolerated these attacks and responded only a handful of times against 150, now 160 attacks against our forces. So it isn't been credible, which is why we've sustained these attacks. And no one believes that we're going to respond. and Iran doesn't believe they're going to be held accountable, and surrogates and proxies are designed to be expendable. It's the whole point.

So Iran will fight to the last Iraqi, the last Syrian, the last Lebanese, Zabala, the last Houthi. That's the whole point. Only Iran, once they experience the cost of their decisions, will we have really achieved restored deterrence? And we've seen in pretty much every headline that this is an Iranian-backed militant group that carried out this attack. but what do we really know about who directly is responsible, who's behind it? Is there a specific group that we're looking at that we've confirmed, or are we not sure yet? The odds are very little happens without us having a pretty good understanding of who's responsible. There can be a little bit of ambiguity because the groups tend to overlap and they tend to morph and adapt and change their names and affiliations.

But I suspect we know exactly who did this and we know exactly who the responsible parties are. the sense so far publicly disclosed that it's a group called Katab Hezbollah, one of the largest Iraqi militias that belong to the popular mobilization committees or the Hashd al-Shabi that work directly for the Iraqi prime minister's office. And again, it puts us in an incredibly awkward position where the administration is actually funding the government of Iraq $60 billion since 2016. In order to conduct the campaign against ISIS, but some of that money inevitably goes to groups that are controlled and directed by Iran and conduct a tax against us. So then, Rob, what is the appropriate response? If you were advising the president, what would your advice be? Well, unfortunately, I've had to do this before, not at this scale because we didn't tolerate it. But the answer always is Iran is behind it.

They're directing, controlling, supplying, equipping, training, and advising. They need to feel the cost of it. And until they do, they'll continue to execute these attacks if they think there's a benefit. One, we need to stop paying the money. Two, we need to stop paying other government's money that ends up in the hands of perpetrator. like Qatabizbalah. And lastly, IRGC serving officers, the arm of the Iranian government

that executes these attacks is on the ground advising, directing, controlling groups, they need to bear the brunt of it. They need to be attacked and they need to be held accountable for the attacks. Otherwise Iran will continue to do this.

And that's why when we killed Qasem Soleimani after one contractor was killed in a rebel immediately prior to that attack in January of 20, we realized at that point in time that Qasem Soleimani as the coordinator for this, had to pay the price. And once that happened, we reset deterrence.

Iran knew that we were serious and things returned to stability. That needs to happen again. Being a realist, what do you expect the Biden administration to do? And in turn, what do you expect to see continuously from Iran and other militant back groups in that region? Well, unfortunately, I think the Biden administration, if nothing else, is consistent. nothing forces them to hold themselves accountable, admit they made a mistake or reverse policy decisions like appeasing Iran. What I suspect is like what happened is slightly increased scale of attacks against Iraqi and Syrian militia groups without holding Iran accountable. And I suspect all that will do is encourage Iran and the other groups to escalate further.

And I suspect this cycle will continue and we may well lose additional U.S. service members as a result. it's interesting, just timing. We're looking at the situation unfold just a handful of days after the Heritage Foundation released its index of U.S. military strength that ranks every branch of our military on how strong or weak it is. What did we learn from that report and what should we be gleaning from that as we're talking about how do we move forward in this region? That's a great question. And fundamentally, the index reflects a couple of things. First is the world's a dangerous place. The second, Iran is part of that.

And third, our ability to sort of address, deter, and meet those threats is declining, unfortunately. And if we don't arrest and reverse that, we're going to continue to encounter difficulties. And so we're already stretched between Europe, the Middle East, and now Asia, and the demand on our capability and capacities outstripping our supply. And this creates enormous difficulties. I also hasten to say that it's hard to recruit service members to serve if they know that they're going to get shot at and not have the ability to respond appropriately. And I know that that weighs those serving currently and those considering it, and not surprisingly so. So I think in all circumstances, we're trending a situation where we're diminishing our own military capabilities in an increasingly dangerous world. And that's

not a good trend. It's not a good trend. What response have we seen from the nation of Jordan after this? Have we seen much of a response? We haven't. It's not much of a surprise for two reasons. Our partners and allies are reluctant to take a hard stance when they think that the United States is not willing to defend itself. They're pretty confident no one's going to defend them. So they're all trying to avoid paying the penalty of the loss of deterrence and become the victim of an attack themselves. Jordan was the target. Our forces were. They were just inside the border, but nonetheless on the Jordanian side. And their reaction has been to sort of point towards our presence in Syria, and not our presence in Jordan so that they don't seem as though they were in direct line of fire.

But the reality is an attack current and sovereign Jordanians of soil. And under other circumstances, they might be equally outraged and inclined to hold the Iranian as accountable. But as I said, we've told all of our partners that they need to make peace with Iran as we're attempting to do. And that failed policy has gotten to the point where Iran's emboldened and our partners are now reluctant to stand against them as we are reluctant to stand against them. I want to give you the final word. Anything else that you think the American people need to be aware of on this topic, this is going to be a focus in all likelihood for, as it should be, in the news this week. How do we need to be thinking about this situation as we're hearing about it

and even just having conversations around the dinner table about it? Sure. I think first this was tragic. Everybody appreciates that. Second, it was inevitable. When we start incurring this number and this volume of attacks without responding, it becomes inevitable. And third, the policy choices that led us here ultimately belong to the Biden administration.

This was the policy of appeasement. They reversed the Trump administration of policies that got us to deterrence. They dismantled it. And now we're left with this residual threat. Now, regardless of whether long term we stay or go, we've got to address responsibility for those that killed Americans and took their lives. And second, we need to protect and advance our interests. And so as we're seeing imprised commodity prices, increased cost of energy, that's a result from the the attacking of commercial shipping in the Red Sea, all of its sponsor by Iran. We feel this in

more ways than one. And our government has to respond in order to bring that back under control so that inflation and commodity prices impacting everyday Americans don't become increasingly unmanageable. So it's not a distant problem. It's a very real problem that hits every American kitchen table. Heritage Foundation's Robert Greenway. Thank you for your time today. We really appreciate it. Thank you. That's going to do it for today's episode. If you want more from Robert Greenway, Greenway. You can find all of his work on the Heritage Foundation website. That's heritage.org. You can also find all of the pieces that he writes for the Daily Signal

by looking up Daily Signal and the name Robert Greenway. But thanks again for being with us today. We really appreciate you tuning in to the Daily Signal podcast. If you have not had the chance, make sure that you check out our evening show that you stay up to date on all of the news of the day where we talk about things that happened just that day over the weekend, events just like this one, breaking down the news that you need to know. Also take a minute to subscribe to the Daily Signal podcast wherever you like to listen. We love hearing your feedback. And when you hit that subscribe button, you never miss out on our latest shows.

Thanks again for listening. We'll see you right back here for our top news edition at 5 p.m. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha a show. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.