Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst told President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday that their Middle East policy has been “catastrophic,” one year after the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel and the subsequent war that broke out in the region.
Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7 last year, killing roughly 1,200 people, sparking a broader regional war and dragging in other bad actors such as the Houthis, Hezbollah and Iran. Ernst told Biden and Harris that their response to the conflict — including criticizing Israel’s actions in the conflict, delisting the Houthis as a terrorist organization and appeasing Iran — has only contributed to the ongoing chaos in the region and gave their policy an “F” grade, according to a letter obtainedby the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Three hundred sixty-five days later, and the war, started by Iranian proxies, has only expanded, with Israel facing threats on all sides,” Ernst wrote. “Your administration’s response to this crisis in the Middle East – sparked in part by your haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan – has been nothing short of catastrophic, costing American lives, demoralizing our allies, and emboldening our adversaries.”
Ernst explained that the Biden-Harris administration’s 2022 promise to “support and strengthen partnerships” with ally nations in the Middle East hasn’t been kept, arguing that the administration has “withheld critical ammunition that Israel needs to defeat Iran and its proxies and free our U.S. hostages.”
Ongoing negotiations to free the remaining hostages “are failing,” Ernst continued.
“Your administration also paused arms sales to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, undermining our partners’ ability to defend themselves against escalating threats by Iran,” Ernst wrote. “All of this, paired with your administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which Vice President Kamala Harris recently reiterated her full support of, shook the faith of our Middle Eastern allies to its core.”
Ernst also pointed to the Biden-Harris administration’s choice to revoke the designation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list in 2021. They were relisted to a separate terror watchlist in January, but not to the FTO.
The Biden-Harris administration’s decision to scrap the Trump-era sanctions against Iran and ease oil bans has only emboldened and enriched Tehran, further escalating regional tensions, Ernst wrote. Iran has made hundreds of billions of dollars from oil revenues under the Biden-Harris administration’s eased sanctions, and billions more from sanctions waivers.
Tehran regularly uses the money it makes to fund various terrorist groups throughout the Middle East.
“You have also allowed Iranian proxies to launch more than 176 attacks on U.S. servicemembers in the region, with no recourse,” Ernst wrote to Biden and Harris. “In June, President Biden declared that he was ‘the only president this century’ that didn’t have any troops ‘dying anywhere in the world.’ Vice President Harris claimed that there is ‘not one member of the United States military who is on active duty in a combat zone, in any war zone around the world, the first time this century.’”
“By making such egregious lies, your administration ignores thousands of our brave servicemen and women who are currently forward deployed in the Middle East while also memory-holing the death of 13 servicemembers during the Afghanistan withdrawal,” Ernst wrote. “You also conveniently forgot the Iran-backed strike on Tower 22 (in Jordan) earlier this year that killed three U.S. soldiers and injured 40 others.”
The Biden-Harris administration has also failed to advance the Trump administration’s historic Abraham Accords, which was a peace deal signed between Israel and a number of other Arab states in 2020, Ernst wrote. Instead, the administration has been focused on returning to the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from in 2018 citing concerns that it did not stop Iran’s nuclear program while allowing Tehran to enjoy lifted sanctions.
“Mr. President and Madam Vice President, you have succeeded in none of the five objectives you set out for the Middle East. If this were a graded test, you would receive an F,” Ernst wrote to Biden and Harris. “Despite the fantastical claimsby your Secretary of State last week, your administration’s strategy has put the United States in a much weaker geopolitical position today than it was four years ago.”
The administration continues to maintain it is working to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and diplomatic off-ramps to bring down tensions in the region. However, U.S. officials are privately conceding that it is unlikely Biden will secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas before his term ends, which in theory could set the stage for regional de-escalation.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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