JOE: DON’T DO IT!
WASHINGTON — President Biden said Friday that his message to Iran is “don’t” attack Israel — after forecasting that Tehran is likely to do so “sooner than later.”
The 81-year-old commander in chief addressed two days of fevered speculation of a looming attack on the set of the “fake” White House in an office building adjacent to the West Wing.
Asked “how imminent” an attack on Israel may be, Biden said, “my expectation is sooner than later” following his virtual address to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.
Asked for his message to Iran, Biden said a single word: “Don’t.”
“We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said in response to another question.
Hours earlier, the White House refused to say how the US would respond if Iran acts on its “very credible” threats to strike Israel — as fears grow that such an attack could trigger a wider war across the Middle East.
While National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the Biden administration considers Tehran’s warnings against the Jewish state to be “viable,” he declined to detail what Washington would do should an attack occur.
“We are certainly mindful of a very public and what we consider to be a very credible threat made by Iran in terms of potential attacks on Israel,” Kirby said.
“We are in constant communication with our Israeli counterparts about making sure that they can defend themselves against those kinds of attacks, but I really don’t want to get into armchair quarterbacking this thing in a public way.”
Iran says any attack would be in retaliation for Israel’s April 1 strike near the Iranian Embassy in
Damascus, which killed Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who managed paramilitary operations in Syria and Lebanon, and at least six other Iranian militants, according to Iranian state media and US officials. Zahedi was the highestranking Iranian military official to be killed since the January 2020 US assassination of Gen. Qassim Soleimani in Baghdad.
No questions
On Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder also refused to answer questions on a potential US response to an attack from Iran, saying he wouldn’t “get into hypotheticals.”
“We’re certainly monitoring the situation closely,” he said. “I don’t have a crystal ball.”
Rich Goldberg, the former official in charge of countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction in the Trump White House and a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Post the US focus is on preventing Iranian drones or missiles from reaching Israeli territory.
“My understanding through sources in both countries is that the cooperation between US Central Command and the Israel Defense Forces right now is at a maximalist, unprecedented level, so there is a very enhanced state of cooperation right now on the threat,” Goldberg said.
While the Biden administration has refused to talk about possible responses against Iran, Goldberg said it would be highly unusual for Israel to ask for US assistance should it need to retaliate.
“Israel has never asked the United States to fight on its behalf or to intervene on its behalf and I would be shocked to learn that it has done so,” he said.
The Iranian regime has not made a final decision regarding how and when to launch the attack, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
“The strike plans are in front of the Supreme Leader and he is still weighing the political risk,” an adviser to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the outlet.