On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reacted to a Washington Post report about frustration within the Pentagon over President Joe Biden’s response to Iranian proxy attacks on American soldiers, with one official saying that other options have presented other options to the President, by stating that Biden’s failure to take alternative options is reminiscent of the Afghanistan withdrawal, where Biden was given advice that he chose to ignore.
Blackburn said, “[W]e have to have an effective kinetic response if we’re going to be able to deter this. And bear in mind, we have lost that deterrence and Biden has lost credibility on this issue, and when you start having people in the Pentagon going to [The] Washington Post, and other outlets, and talking about the dissatisfaction, you know that the President has been given those other options, but we have to remember, much of this dissatisfaction with this administration and much of the distrust that some in the Pentagon have with the Biden administration goes back to the Afghanistan withdrawal. And, after that debacle, we found out much, much later, through hearings, that the President had been given options and what did he say? No, we’re going to go forward. And then he goes out and he declares it a success when people in the military knew this was not a success. So, we have to reestablish that deterrence, and we have to have that effective kinetic response.”
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