Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, repeatedly dodged answering key questions on Sunday about the military strikes that the U.S. launched against Iranian-backed terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria late last week.
Sullivan made the remarks during four separate interviews — ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and CNN — after the Biden administration repeatedly telegraphed to Iran details about what its response in the region would be after three U.S. soldiers were killed and dozens more injured during a terrorist attack last weekend.
Sullivan said during the interviews that the initial round of strikes were only the beginning and that more would be forthcoming, “Some of those steps will be seen. Some may not be seen.”
He acknowledged during an interview on ABC News’ “This Week” that the strikes did not establish deterrence against future attacks, an issue that Republicans quickly called out, saying that the administration, “cannot rule out that there will be future attacks from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria or from the Houthis.”
Sullivan claimed that the administration had signaled toughness to Iran through its actions and not its “words,” even though Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders fled Iraq and Syria shortly after the Biden administration started leaking information about its retaliatory strikes.
When pressed during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” about what the next steps of the U.S.’s campaign was going to be, Sullivan responded: “I’m not going to, obviously, describe the character of that action because I don’t want to telegraph our punches.”
CBS News’ Margaret Brennan brought up the fact the strikes were “so telegraphed in advance” and mentioned how it allowed IRGC commanders to escape.
“The idea that somehow this was telegraphed, I think is a bit more of a political talking point than a reality,” he claimed.
NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked Sullivan about the intense criticism the administration has faced for telegraphing the strikes, to which he mocked those saying that, calling them “armchair quarterbacks.”
Again, this comes after the administration warned for a week that it was going to conduct an extensive bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria against Iranian-backed terrorist facilities that were involved in the deadly attack on U.S. forces. Numerous reports have indicated that Iran’s IRGC commanders fled and were unharmed and there has been speculation that a lot of weapons were moved and thus not destroyed during the strikes.
Sullivan also refused to rule out during multiple interviews the possibility that the U.S. could conduct military strikes inside of Iran.
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On the criticism that the administration has faced for responding only a handful of times to the approximately 170 attacks that U.S. forces have faced in Iraq and Syria since mid-October, Sullivan claimed that “the notion that we have not responded is just incorrect.”
Sullivan refused to disclose any details on how effective the strikes were late last week or information on how many terrorists were killed.
