As war unfolds in the Middle East, Biden realizes it’s almost his bedtime.
Poor lil’ guy gets tuckered out easily.
Biden was supposed to address the nation but it was canceled.
What’s he up to?
Shouldn’t he say something?
CNN was just forced to retract their reporting on-air and admit Joe Biden will not address the nation as the world erupts into war
WHERE’S JOE?!
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 13, 2024
CNN reports:
For President Joe Biden, an attack on Israel launched from Iranian soil amounts to a scenario he’d greatly sought to avoid since the start of the current Middle East conflict.
The reprisals heighten the risk of a wider regional conflict that could directly draw in the United States, along with other countries.
And they place Biden — again — in the tenuous position of pledging stalwart support for Israel while also trying to prevent a new conflagration from exploding with the United States involved.
What comes next is unknown. In the immediate aftermath of Iran’s attacks, American officials acknowledged they were entering uncharted territory, with the extent of Iran’s attacks initially unclear. One significant question mark is how proxies might potentially join Iranian efforts to target Israel and add a new layer of unpredictability. And with Israel’s plans for a response still being formed, Biden administration officials are expected to continue advising their Israeli counterparts – with the desire for containment in mind.
Biden is also operating within the fraught politics of an election year, lending outsized importance to his upcoming decisions. The eruption of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7 has hurt Biden at home, eroding his support with key constituencies as he has declined to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
One of the reasons Biden returned urgently to the White House from his beach house in Delaware Saturday afternoon was the ongoing nature of the attack, one official said, with the Situation Room better equipped for real-time monitoring of events.
Administration officials saw Iran’s attacks on Israel Saturday as disproportionate to Israel’s strikes in Damascus that prompted the retaliation, a US official told CNN.
That view has been an important factor in the discussions taking place in the White House throughout the day on next steps, particularly as Biden is set on preventing a full-scale regional conflict from erupting.
There is also a recognition that what Israel is likely to do in response will depend on a full damage assessment, including potential casualties, so the Biden administration’s advice to Israel will depend on that picture coming into focus, the official added.
Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Saturday night, as did Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his counterpart Yoav Gallant, and the two governments will stay in close touch in the coming hours and days.
In the immediate aftermath of the Israeli strikes in Syria that killed top Iranian commanders, US officials monitored Iran gearing up to launch a major attack on Israel, seeing it as inevitable. As the US, in close consultation with Israel, sought to figure out exactly how, when and where exactly Iran would retaliate, administration officials never fully ruled out Iran trying to strike inside Israel as well as American personnel and assets in the region.
The most likely “worst case scenario,” one senior administration official said in the days leading up to Iran’s Saturday attacks, was a direct attack by Iran on Israel, and the eruption of a state-on-state conflict that could very well prompt the beginning of a wider regional conflict that the US has been working to prevent since the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ October 7 attacks.
Despite his current tensions with Netanyahu over the war in Gaza, Biden and his top officials have sought over the past week to diminish any daylight between the US and Israel when it comes to Israel’s defense against Iran.
In the hours before Iran launched its attack, the US defense secretary and national security adviser spoke with their counterparts in Israel to reiterate that support. And last week, Gen. Erik Kurilla, the commander of US Central Command, was in Israel discussing contingencies with officials ahead of the expected attack.
Recall when Trump called out Iran?
TRUMP had the balls to talk trash about Iran in front of their faces, in front of all the nation leaders and media.
BIDEN COULD NEVER. pic.twitter.com/AP6tS0PRMG— RAN_DUMB_LIBS (@Ran_Dumb_Libs) April 14, 2024
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