Washington (KINY) – U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), released the following statement on Sunday in response to a strike carried out by Iran-backed terrorist proxies in Jordan that reportedly killed three U.S. service members and wounded 25 others.
“Iranian terrorist proxies have crossed a red line with the reported killing of 3 brave U.S. service members and wounding of dozens more,” Sen. Sullivan said. “This strike, and the 150+ attacks our forces have sustained in recent months, shows the dangers of the Biden administration’s appeasement of Iran in the past three years and the administration’s total failure to enact deterrence in the region—something I’ve been pushing to reverse for years. The President needs to order a clear, lethal, and overwhelming response that demonstrates to Iran and to the world that whoever targets our men and women in uniform—or supports these attacks—will face the full might of the U.S. military.”
On Nov. 2, 2023, Sen. Sullivan led 12 of his Senate Republican colleagues in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, demanding the Biden administration press for a broader, more permanent framework of sanctions on Iran from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). On Nov. 14, 2023, Sens. Sullivan and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and a number of their Senate colleagues, introduced a resolution emphasizing the fact that deterrence is most credible when the President keeps all options on the table, including the use of military force, to deter attacks from Iran and its proxies.
On Dec. 12, 2023, Sen. Sullivan and a number of his colleagues again sent a letter to Secretary Blinken, urging him to re-designate the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), as well as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT).
On Jan. 12, Sen. Sullivan expressed his support for the strikes on the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which he said were “long overdue.”
On Jan. 17, Sen. Sullivan said the decision to redesignate the Houthi rebels as an SDGT is a “step forward” that “doesn’t go far enough.”
