U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan answers questions during his daily briefing at the White House on November 13, 2023 in Washington, DC.
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National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the United States is not seeking further military action against Iranian-backed groups, despite Sullivan's assertion that the United States is not seeking a broader conflict in the region. He said that this would increase tensions in the Middle East.
“The president has made it very clear from the beginning that if our military is attacked, we will respond, and we have responded several times over the past several months,” Sullivan said in an interview with NBC News. Ta. “Members of the press,” he said, adding that the latest U.S. attack “is not the end” of the president's continued military response. “We will continue to take additional strikes and take additional actions to send a clear message that if our troops are attacked or our people are killed, the United States will respond.”
It remains unclear whether the United States will carry out an attack inside Iran.
In response to host Kristen Welker's question about whether the United States has ruled out an attack on Iranian soil, Sullivan said, “I'm not going to go into what we've ruled out and ruled out in terms of military action.” said.
He added: “What I want to say is that the president is determined to respond forcefully to attacks against our people. He also does not want a broader war in the Middle East.”
On Friday, the United States carried out retaliatory strikes in Iraq and Syria against more than 85 targets associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian-backed extremists. The airstrike was carried out in retaliation for a Jan. 28 drone attack on a U.S. military base in northeastern Jordan that killed three U.S. soldiers and injured dozens more. The base, known as Tower 22, is located near the demilitarized zone on the Jordanian-Syrian border and also close to the Iraqi border.
A day after these attacks, the US and UK led attacks on 36 Houthi targets in Yemen in a second attempt to further destabilize the Iranian-backed group. The Houthis, who have close ties to Iran, have fired on merchant ships and warships in the Red Sea, saying their actions were in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Israeli-Hamas war. Sullivan said these are “separate but related challenges” and spoke of the growing conflict in the region, which the Biden administration is trying to stop.
Iran denies involvement in the Jordanian drone attack and insists the militants were acting independently. Iran's Foreign Ministry on Saturday condemned overnight US attacks on Iraq and Syria.
Asked how concerned he was that Iranian-backed forces could retaliate against U.S. forces again, Sullivan said, “That's always a risk…If there are more attacks, you're going to see more reactions.”
Sullivan also appeared on ABC's “This Week,” CBS' “Face the Nation” and CNN's “State of the Union” on Sunday morning.
