Republican Lawmakers Urge Biden to Directly Attack Iran Right Now

GOP hawks are demanding that President Joe Biden hit back against Iran after a drone strike from an Iran-backed militia killed three American soldiers and injured at least 34 U.S. personnel at a Jordan base on Sunday.

“I am calling on the Biden Administration to strike targets of significance inside Iran, not only as reprisal for the killing of our forces, but as deterrence against future aggression,” Senator Lindsey Graham said in a statement just hours after the news broke.

“The only thing the Iranian regime understands is force. Until they pay a price with their infrastructure and their personnel, the attacks on U.S. troops will continue,” he added. “Hit Iran now. Hit them hard.”

Other members of Republican leadership—who have spent months stalling on supplying aid to two other war fronts America is already involved in—showed similar bloodlust.

“He left our troops as sitting ducks, and now three are dead and dozens wounded, sadly as I’ve predicted would happen for months,” said Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East. Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander in chief.”

Senate Minority Mitch McConnell issued a similar statement, highlighting that all eyes are on Biden as to whether he will “exercise American strength to compel Iran to change its behavior” and impose “serious, crippling costs” for Iran’s “front-line terrorist proxies” and the country’s sponsors “who wear American blood as a badge of honor.”

Senator John Cornyn specifically called for the U.S. military to “target Tehran,” the capital city of Iran, before later backtracking to say that he meant the “IRGC and Quds Force terrorist facilitators.”

“The head of the snake is Iran,” Representative Don Bacon, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Axios. “We should find smart Iranian targets that are low risk of our aircraft getting shot down and teach Iran a lesson.”

The Iranian government denied involvement in the attack on Monday.

Biden has vowed to retaliate against Iran for the attack, though foreign policy experts believe he is likely weighing a “Goldilocks” response—not too hard that it would incite a full-fledged war or escalate the situation in Gaza but not too soft that it prolongs the conflict, according to The New York Times.