Michael Rubin, director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, appeared on the Michael Medved Show on February 2, hours after the United States launched airstrikes against 85 targets in Iraq and Syria linked to Iran’s armed proxies.
Excerpt
Is this the sort of response, the sort of attack, you would have expected? Do you think it is the kind of response that is well advised?
Well, I would have expected a response. And this would be the type of response, Michael, that I would expect from the Biden administration. I’m not trying to be overly partisan here, but what sets this response [apart] from that of previous administrations – if we go back, for example, to Bill Clinton with Operation Desert Fox in 1998, or Donald Trump’s strike on Qasem Soleimani – is that they relied upon the element of surprise. We actually went so far as to talk about this for several days, talk about what the targets might be, and then we went so far as to tell them what days the targeting would occur.
The Biden administration wants to “militarily virtue signal” but “not risk escalation.”
It’s almost as if the Biden administration is trying to have it both ways. On one hand, they want to militarily virtue signal. On the other hand, they’re warning the targets – the Iranians – to leave, so that we damage empty buildings, but don’t risk escalation. That’s not the way deterrence works. That actually sends a signal to Iran that in the future they can get away with murder.
Would you have suggested, then, a more immediate response with some element of surprise?
I absolutely would have. You know, in the bowels of the Pentagon, they have targeting encyclopedias where, you have 25,000 people in the Pentagon, you have even more in the intelligence community. And their job, for example within the Defense Intelligence Agency, is to monitor these sites round the clock, to know and to enter into systems the coordinates of this. And so, if the White House or the National Security Advisor asks for a list of twelve targets, the Pentagon in theory can provide that within an hour. The fact that we took several days seems rather deliberate.
Do you expect that there will be some high-profile attempt by Iran to strike back, to respond to these American attacks, even though they’re not on Iranian territory, and will they strike back at more American facilities, or do you think they would strike back directly at Israel.
Well, first of all, they’re going to continue striking at Israel, by proxy at least. Because that’s what the Iranians do. It’s ideological. And when I say ‘the Iranians,’ of course, I mean the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) and the regime. The Iranians themselves have no beef, in general, with Israel.
But, when it comes to the United States – look, I’m afraid they’re going to strike at the United States, not in revenge for these strikes, not a so-called ‘cycle of violence,’ but rather because we’ve undercut deterrence and shown weakness by telegraphing. It’s easy enough to rebuild a building. What can’t be replaced so easily are the generals and the advisors of the IRGC. By signaling that we’re not interested in them, not interested in removing them from the battlefield, that actually sends a signal to the Iranians that they really aren’t going to be held to account should they continue these attacks.
Now, what I expect will happen, Michael, is the Iraqis – or certain militias inside Iraq – will raise umbrage and demand the Americans withdraw. They’re going to use this to put pressure on Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani in order to demand that the Americans leave – and leave quickly. The question is whether Sudani, who probably deep down doesn’t want the Americans to go, how he’s going to handle that issue.
