It should have come as no surprise to the White House that Iran has been "deeply involved" in attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, and if the Biden administration had been speaking with the right people that would have been known, Darin Gaub, a retired U.S. Army lieutentant colonel and executive director of Restored Liberty, said on Newsmax Saturday.
"If the White House had called and talked to the right people who are talking to people all over the Middle East, they would know that Iran has been in the Red Sea for a very long time, influencing what is going on," Gaub, who appeared with retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata on Newsmax's "America Right Now," commented.
He added that when one tallies the attacks on American forces throughout the Middle East, "we're talking over 90 that we know of."
"The simple fact is, they're funding the Houthi rebels and Hezbollah and Hamas, and all these different what I call mercenary armies for Tehran," said Gaub.
Tata commented that the administration's policy should be to deter Iran, but instead, it is funding its aggressions, including paying out $6 billion for the release of hostages and by not enforcing sanctions, allowing Iran to trade freely with China.
"That money flows directly into all of these terrorist groups, whether the Houthi rebels, Hamas, Hezbollah, Shia militia groups," said Tata. "Iran is effectively waging a regional war throughout the Middle East on all Western interests to include Israel. To deter that, you have to be credible. This administration is not credible because they're not authentic."
Instead, the White House's authenticity is "related to their embracing of Islamic extremism and the terrorist groups that they've refused to acknowledge that Iran is funding," said Tata. "You have to deter and we have the capacity to do that, but this administration is just choosing not to do so."
Meanwhile, there has been talk about the Palestinian Authority taking control of Gaza once Hamas is eradicated, but Gaub said that "means you're inviting failure."
"To have the Palestinian Authority have any role whatsoever in the Gaza Strip, to have the United Nations have any role in the Gaza Strip at this point is a nonstarter, just like the two-state solution is a guaranteed failure," he said. "You might as well just let Israel take it over and let Israel run it. It's their land anyway."
Gaub added that he doesn't know of anyone who is talking about a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians that is "really serious."
"They want to continue the process of keeping something radicalized near Israel so they can continue to use those terrorist armies and groups to continue to harass Israel, and paint Israel on the world stage as the 'bad guy' as they've been doing for decades," he said.
Meanwhile, the United States immigration situation under President Joe Biden has created a "very unstable security environment domestically," said Tata.
"We can see with our own eyes how unstable it is overseas," he said. "My big concern is that the border is a fourth intelligence failure, with the first one being Afghanistan, then Ukraine, then Hamas and Israel ... we've yet to really see that and do the forensics on it."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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