Retired four-star Marine general Frank McKenzie, who led US forces in the Middle East until retiring in 2022, says the Biden administration’s indecisive response to attacks in the Red Sea and against US troops at bases in Iraq and Syria has failed to deter Iran and its proxies carrying them out.

“Even before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, Iranian forces were launching missile and drone strikes on our bases across the region, acting through proxies that gave them a measure of deniability,” he writes in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “Our response has consistently been tentative, overly signaled and unfocused.”

“To reset deterrence, we must apply violence that Tehran understands,” McKenzie writes.

Asked whether Operation Prosperity Guardian, the coalition dispatched to protect Red Sea shipping lanes, might target Houthi positions with strikes to prevent them from attacking ships, Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads US Naval forces in the Middle East, says the 22-nation coalition is purely defensive in nature.

“Anything that happens outside of the defensive aspect of this operation is a completely different operation,” he says.

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