“These responses began tonight, they’re not going to end tonight,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said.
Senior officials of President Joe Biden’s administration have stated that they were looking to not just a send signals but degrade the capabilities of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its allied militias through the comprehensive set of strikes launched against targets in Iraq and Syria.
“This wasn’t just a message-sending routine tonight,” White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Director John Kirby told reporters Friday, hours after U.S. warplanes conducted dozens of strikes in Iraq and Syria. “This was about degrading capability taking in a more robust way than we have in the past, taking away capabilities by the IRGC and the militant groups.”
He emphasized that “these responses began tonight, they’re not going to end tonight.”
But as tensions mount across the Middle East on the sidelines of the still-raging conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement, Kirby also echoed Biden’s position that the U.S. is “not seeking a war with Iran.” As such, he argued that the latest strikes—and those to come—were designed to prevent a larger conflict rather than provoke it.
“How does this comport with not wanting a broader conflict?” Kirby said during a press call hours after U.S. warplanes conducted strikes across seven facilities in Iraq and Syria on Friday. “Because if you’re taking away capability of an adversary who’s trying to kill your troops and act against your interests in the region … then you are, by default, working to de-escalate the tensions.
