Biden warns Iran ‘don’t’ attack Israel — but admits strike likely ‘sooner than later’
WASHINGTON — President Biden said Friday that his message to Iran is “don’t” attack Israel — after forecasting that Tehran is likely to do so “sooner than later.”
The 81-year-old commander in chief addressed two days of fevered speculation of a looming attack on the set of the “fake” White House in an office building adjacent to the West Wing.
Asked “how imminent” an attack on Israel may be, Biden said, “my expectation is sooner than later” following his virtual address to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.
Asked for his message to Iran, Biden said a single word: “Don’t.”
“We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said in response to another question.
Hours earlier, the White House refused to say how the US would respond if Iran acts on its “very credible” threats to strike Israel — as fears grow that such an attack could trigger a wider war across the Middle East.
While National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the Biden administration considers Tehran’s warnings against the Jewish state to be “viable,” he declined to detail what Washington would do should an attack occur.
“We are certainly mindful of a very public and what we consider to be a very credible threat made by Iran in terms of potential attacks on Israel,” Kirby said.
“We are in constant communication with our Israeli counterparts about making sure that they can defend themselves against those kinds of attacks, but I really don’t want to get into armchair quarterbacking this thing in a public way.”
Iran says any attack would be in retaliation for Israel’s April 1 strike near the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, which killed Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who managed paramilitary operations in Syria and Lebanon, and at least six other Iranian militants, according to Iranian state media and US officials.
Zahedi was the highest-ranking Iranian military official to be killed since the January 2020 US assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
On Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder also refused to answer questions on a potential US response to an attack from Iran, saying he wouldn’t “get into hypotheticals.”
“We’re certainly monitoring the situation closely,” he said. “I don’t have a crystal ball and I’m not going to get into specific intelligence.”
Rich Goldberg, the former official in charge of countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction in the Trump White House and a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Post the US focus is on preventing Iranian drones or missiles from reaching Israeli territory.
“My understanding through sources in both countries is that the cooperation between US Central Command and the Israel Defense Forces right now is at a maximalist, unprecedented level, so there is a very enhanced state of cooperation right now on the threat,” Goldberg said.
While the Biden administration has refused to talk about possible responses against Iran, Goldberg saidit would be highly unusual for Israel to ask for US assistance should it need to retaliate.
“Israel has never asked the United States to fight on its behalf or to intervene on its behalf and I would be shocked to learn that it has done so,” he said.
Still, Goldberg noted that the Pentagon has assets in the Middle East that could help shoot down an incoming missile from Iran, should it be necessary.
“To the extent that the US is providing missile defense support, that would be in accordance with US policy doctrine and 20 years of military exercises between the United States military and Israeli military, so that, to me, is appropriate,” he said.
The calculus would likely change if Iran moves against US forces in the region.
“It would be imprudent if we didn’t take a look at our own posture in the region to make sure that we’re properly prepared as well,” Kirby said Friday.
Tehran reportedly told its allies last week that it would attack American military bases if Washington should get involved in the fighting between Iran and Israel, Axios reported Friday, citing unnamed US officials.
“The Iranian message was we will attack the forces that attack us, so don’t f–k with us and we won’t f–k with you,” one official told Axios.
Goldberg further noted that there appears to be some “signaling of major escalation prepared by the Israelis … if there is a direct missile attack from Iran.”
“That would be in the form of one of their intermediate-range or medium-range ballistic missiles, a cruise missile” that could “cause a large amount of destruction.”
The Iranian regime has not made a final decision regarding how and when to launch the attack, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
“The strike plans are in front of the Supreme Leader and he is still weighing the political risk,” an adviser to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the outlet.
