2023-12-21-Grabien-2220271

Kroger Delivery offers great deals on holiday ingredients and delivers to your door. Iran is behind belligerent activity in the Middle East, including attacks on American forces and threats to commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The US is unable to deter Iran and the adversary is setting the limits of our response. Saudi Arabia is frustrated with the lack of US support. John Bolton suggests taking clear, forceful action against Iran and its surrogates. There is a split within the Democratic Party regarding support for Israel. Oil prices may rise due to the instability in the region. When your guests bring their appetites, Kroger Delivery will make your dollars stretch with great deals on ingredients to make your holiday favorite. Thanks to our refrigerated truck, you can get Kroger delivered to your door, even if you don't live near a Kroger store. Try today and save $45 total off your first three orders, plus free delivery when you sign up for a free trial of Boots. Order online now at Kroger.com. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Eligible for orders of $35 or more, offer valid with digital coupon. Restrictions apply. See site for details. This is CBS. I am the world. I'm John Batchelor. What is to be done with the attacks on American forces in Syria, American forces in Iraq, American forces escorting commercial container ships and oil ships through the Red Sea, American forces in and around the Middle East, attacks authored by, I welcome John Bolton, former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States, former Ambassador to the United Nations, writing most recently at the Washington Post. John, your name, Iran. Iran is the center of the storm here. Right now, your measure is that Iran is paying no cost. What would a cost be for Iran? What works for the mullahs, John, given their predation? Good evening to you. Good evening. Well, I think Iran is the mastermind behind a whole lot of belligerent activity in the region. The Hamas attack on Israel, the most barbaric and brutal of all. But in coordination with Hamas's efforts against Israel, you have the Houthis of Yemen, armed and trained and equipped by Tehran, effectively right now coming very close to closing the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to commercial traffic. Twelve percent of the world's commerce goes through the Suez Canal, and if it can't exit or enter at the southern end of the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandat Strait, which is right where Yemen is, then it's closed. A number of key shipping companies are now going around Africa. That's going to increase costs, and we're going to see the effect pretty soon. And in Syria and Iraq, you have Shia militia groups, again, armed, equipped, trained, financed by Iran that have, in the days since October the 7th, launched at least 100 identifiable attacks against American military and civilian personnel in Iraq and Syria. Over 60 casualties to date. And military officers are being quoted anonymously as saying, the only reason we haven't had a mass casualty incident in Syria or Iraq or on one of our vessels, our naval ships in the Red Sea, is luck. Now, that is not a strategy, and I think there are obviously huge issues in the Hamas-Israel clash. There are huge issues for the United States when our personnel and one of our core national security values, freedom of the seas, is under threat from Iran. We've been threatened directly, John, by the man himself, al-Houthi, taking to the airwaves. Abdulmalik al-Houthi, 44 years old, a leader of a religious cult and a very well-equipped army thanks to Iran, said Mr. al-Houthi on television, any American targeting of our country will be targeted by us, and we will make American battleships, interest in navigation a target for our missiles, drones, and military operations. That's a threat, John. How do we respond? Well, it is a threat. I don't think he would make it if he didn't feel he had full backing from Iran, and it's the plainest kind of evidence I can imagine that Mr. al-Houthi is not deterred by the United States. Well, I think your audience should think about this for a minute. The United States of America right now is not capable of deterring the Houthi rebels in Yemen. What does that say about our position around the world? And that's why these issues are so important, only gaining attention in the media recently when the economic effect has become clear. But we can't deter Iran from supplying the Houthis, attacking vessels in the Red Sea. We can't deter them from attacking our own personnel in Syria and Iraq. Israel and the United States were unable to deter the Hamas attack. Obviously, we failed to deter the Russian attack in Ukraine. You can only imagine what the leadership in Beijing is saying to itself right now. What target should we go after given this weakness in the United States? I remind myself in the early days of the Ukraine war, the Biden administration said we're not giving them name a weapon system because we don't want this to escalate. We don't want Russia to feel threatened. And 22 months later, that has not led to a happy conclusion. Now, if I understand correctly, our allies, Saudi Arabia, is asking the U.S. not to respond in kind because they don't want the war to accelerate. John, from an amateur's point of view, I observe that we're watching the adversary set the limits of our response. They're dictating the terms. Well, that's exactly right. And in the case of even our friends in Saudi Arabia, one reason that they're so irate about the Biden administration's failure, I mean, at this point, still rejecting joining a coalition force to escort vessels through the Red Sea, which I don't think will work if the Houthis don't think they face retaliation, is remember, both in the Obama administration and in the Trump administration, in connection with the Yemen civil war, the U.S., Europe, the United Nations, all blamed Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for prolonging the war and, in effect, being responsible for the humanitarian disaster that was going on inside Yemen. And yet the Houthis, who could not have continued their resistance, but for substantial Iranian support, financial and military, escaped blame. So the Saudis are saying, you know, so why should we help you when you didn't help us? It's a lesson to be learned. Ronald Reagan, you were in the Justice Department, you tell me, John. Ronald Reagan's second term, Operation Earnest Will, July 87 to September 88. This is when Iran was using fast attack boats to harass, to threaten tankers in the Persian Gulf. The answer was the U.S. Navy, and I believe at one point they took down an Iranian platform. Otherwise, they opened fire. Is that going to work again, John? Well, I think we need to test it. I mean, we haven't even substantially retaliated against Iran's surrogates, the Shia militia, a few pinprick attacks, no attacks at all on the Houthis. So I'd say, fair enough, let's start with them. Maybe we can deter them enough. But if we don't, Iran has to pay a cost. And I will say, I think at some point Israel's got to make the hard decision in response to the Hamas attack, whether they should also make Iran pay a direct cost. I'm not talking about overthrowing the regime. I'm talking about things like taking out air defense systems along Iran's coast. I'm talking about sinking Iranian naval vessels in the Red Sea, aiding the Houthis, that kind of thing. Clear, forceful action that says to Iran, not from you and not from your surrogates, do we expect to see any more threats to America or to the freedom of the seas? Does the president have pressure from his party to do something or not do something? I'm unfamiliar with that, John. Well, I don't think he faces any pressure from the Democratic Party to do more. I think, unfortunately, the Democratic Party looks to be badly split, even in the president's policy to support Israel with with an increasing number of people and especially young people, which I find frightening and very disturbing, taking anti-Israel positions. So I think the impact of the split within the Democratic Party on President Biden's already perilous political future next November is having an effect trying to basically tamp Israel's operations down, all of which plays entirely to the benefit of Hamas and Iran. Right now, what we have is a series of headlines in Bloomberg that go around the world. They'll wake up to Asia, this Yemen's Houthis, now more attacks in Red Sea despite U.S. naval force. And as of right now, these headlines threaten worse ahead. Yeah, look, I think oil prices are going to rise right now. They've been held down by a lot of oil on the market. But wait until instead of.