On Monday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby acknowledged that Iran’s calculus for backing attacks on U.S. troops hasn’t been changed by the Biden administration and the response to the lethal attack over the weekend will “be calibrated to hopefully have a better effect on the decision-making of these groups.”
Co-host Steve Inskeep said, [relevant exchange begins around 3:35] “[I]t would seem — if you assume that Iran is in some way behind these attacks in Jordan, attacks in Yemen, attacks in other places, attacks from Lebanon into Israel, if you assume Iran is behind all of that, that they’re not deterred, that they’re confident that they can get away at least with this level of violence.”
Kirby responded, “Clearly, they continue to encourage some of these attacks. They continue to resource these groups that conduct these attacks. So, we haven’t seen a change in the calculus of the supreme leader or the IRGC, and that’s deeply concerning. And that’s why we’re going to take the right time to make the appropriate response decisions in the wake of this attack. The president’s taken this very seriously. It was a consequential attack now. We’ve had three servicemembers killed, 30-some-odd wounded, and there will be a response, as the president said, and it’ll be calibrated to hopefully have a better effect on the decision-making of these groups.”
Inskeep then said, “Sounds like it’s not calibrated the way you want yet.”
Kirby responded, “Again, we’ll take a look at the options ahead of us. The president had a good meeting over the weekend with his national security team, and he’ll review the options that are available to him, and we’ll move forward.”
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