Biden’s Justification For Hitting Iran ‘Would Justify Russian Attacks on NATO’
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 03.02.2024
On Friday, US President Joe Biden fulfilled his promise to strike Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq, further escalating the region even as the White House insists that it does not seek war with Iran.
Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst for the Office of the Secretary of Defense with nearly 30 years of experience, told Sputnik’s Fault Lines that the justification used by the White House could easily be applied by Russia to NATO countries supporting Ukraine.
“You’re hearing from congressmen and senators saying ‘but we need to hit Iran for supplying the Houthis and Hamas and Hezbollah,” Maloof explained. “Well, does Russia then have a right to hit US and NATO allies, as a result of supplying weapons to Ukraine to battle Russians?”
The United States has placed the blame on Iran for the Sunday drone attack that killed three US service members and injured dozens more on the border of Syria and Jordan. While the US admits that it has no evidence Iran helped plan the attack, the Biden administration has been clear it blames Iran because the country allegedly funds those groups and other militants.
“This afternoon, at my direction, U.S. military forces struck targets at facilities in Iraq and Syria that the IRGC and affiliated militia use to attack U.S. forces,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement released Friday by the White House.
“I think that if Biden were to follow through, then that raises a whole new specter of opening up NATO countries to potential attack,” Maloof continued, adding that the US is simply hoping Russian President Vladimir Putin “doesn’t follow through” with that justification.
Maloof argued that the US should reevaluate the situation in the Middle East but it’s difficult because the US looks “at the Middle East through the prism of Israel all the time.”
“We’ve got to somehow figure a way out of it. Instead, we’re digging that hole deeper and even though there might be some attempts to try and persuade [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to calm down and have a ceasefire and try to resolve things, it’s doing just the opposite.
“The problem is that Biden has left the conduct of the war up to Netanyahu, and Netanyahu knows this and he’s basically dragging us along – we’re captives of Netanyahu,” Maloof explained.
“You don’t have any, there’s no leadership [the US] left it up to Netanyahu. He’s the tail wagging the dog,” he added later.
Maloof further argued that Israel has been getting the United States to do its dirty work for decades. “We always hear Netanyahu wanting the United States involved, or us to bomb the sites… This is the way we’ve been conducting ourselves since… 2003 when we invaded Iraq.”
Asked by Co-host Melik Abdul how the US should have responded to the attack, Maloof argued that the US should leave the region.
“I think we shouldn’t even be in those locations. And I think we should have gotten out some time ago.”
Otherwise, Maloof warns “This thing has unlimited possibilities of escalation very rapidly.”

Biden is captured at this point in time, by war mongering neocons at the Atlantic Council, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, etc, and of course by AIPAC’s money and influence. If polls mean anything, they show that these think tanks and PACS are out of touch with American’s sentiments against genocide and war. But the President is in a reelection bid probably against Trump so he isn’t listening to all the thousands of private Americans and government workers who have written, called, quit, demonstrated, against Israeli genocide. Most of them are not claiming to be against Israel as the ADL claimes. They don’t support the United States facilitating genocide against the Palestinians or anyone for that matter. And most people reject the United States doing it IN THEIR NAME!
Biden ignores the warnings because he’s been told that he can’t be seen as a weakling in a Presidential election year. We must assume Biden has opted to look Presidential by being tough. The equivalence of being tough, according to his neocon backers, is by supporting Israel’s genocide and warring on nations that are opposed to it. Someone should tell the increasingly isolated President Biden, “these people, the neocons and reps from the defense and financial sector; they are few! But all those millions of American voters out there, the ones whose sensibilities you have offended, they are many.” ”So do the right thing if you want to have a chance of getting re-elected Mr. President, by forcing Israel to accept a permanent ceasefire and order all US troops out of Iraq and Syria, now!”
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