Following the administration's briefing of the Congressional Gang of Eight, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson (LA-04) released a short statement expressing support for the administration's actions in Operation Epic Fury.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said the U.S. strike on Iran was a defensive operation designed to prevent “staggering losses” to American troops and assets, arguing that waiting for Iran to strike first would have resulted in devastating casualties.
Johnson spoke to reporters at the Capitol on Monday, where he emphasized that the most critical point of the operation was that it was defensive in nature.
“Israel was determined to act in their own defense here, with or without American support,” he said. “Israel faced what they deemed to be an existential threat. Iran was building missiles at a radical, and at a rapid clip, to the point where our allies in the region could not keep up, as you know, Iran, has, long vowed to take out Israel, wipe it off the map.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as we reported earlier today, noted also that Israel would have acted with or without American support:
Read More: Marco Rubio to Congress on Iran: 'Hardest Hits Are Yet to Come'
Perspective: A Former US Senator and Current Congressman Weigh in on Operation Epic Fury
The Speaker continued:
“Because Israel was determined to act with or without the US, our commander in chief and the administration and the officials…had to evaluate the threats to the US, to our troops, to our installations, to our assets in the region and beyond,” Johnson continued. “If Iran had begun to fire all of their missile arsenal – short and mid-range missiles – at our personnel and our assets and our installations, we would have suffered staggering losses, and if we had waited to respond before acting first, then those losses would have been far greater than if we had done what we did. That was their decision.”
Johnson said he guarantees that if the U.S. had not acted, the Trump administration would have been hauled in by Congress and asked why they waited if they had “existential intelligence, knowing that that would happen.”
“I am convinced that they did the right thing,” he said.
Speaker Johnson also mentioned, as Secretary Rubio did earlier, that the primary objective of the operation is disarmament, not regime change.
That's as may be, but the current decapitation campaign sure looks as though it's aimed at setting a lovely table for the rebellious Iranian people to dine at. It wasn't ballistic missiles and drones standing in the way of the Iranian people who have been in the streets, demanding their own country back. It was the vicious theocratic thugs in Tehran that controlled those weapons that were in their way, and those people and those weapons are now being reduced to wreckage by American and Israeli explosives. The remnants of the regime in Iran are still popping up here and there, and to the brave Americans and Israelis flying those great high-tech hammers, the regime goons are looking an awful lot like nails, and the flyers are responding accordingly.
Regime change may not be America's and Israel's primary objectives. But as long as it happens, it doesn't seem likely the Iranian people are going to be too worried about the details of that; they'll be too busy bringing their nation into the modern era at last.
Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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