Sen. Cotton: Tehran Mocking the United States Following Airstrikes

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., dismissed the Biden administration’s retaliatory airstrikes in Syria overnight as unserious, saying strikes against Iran’s proxies only serve to validate Iran.

Cotton was reacting to the strikes against weapons and ammunition facilities in Syria, used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and militia groups that it backs, that were ordered by the Pentagon early Friday morning.

What the Biden administration called proportional in its response to more than 20 U.S. service members being wounded last week by drone and rocket attacks, Cotton called weak.

“Retaliation against expendable proxies — especially unoccupied proxy warehouses — merely validates Iran’s strategy to use proxies to attack Americans. They are laughing at us in Tehran. Iran will continue to target Americans until President [Joe] Biden gets serious about imposing severe costs on Iran,” Cotton said in his statement, part of which he also posted to X.

Twenty of those service members were injured in a drone attack on al-Tanf military base in southern Syria. Another four were wounded in two drone attacks on al-Asad base in western Iraq the same day, U.S. Central Command said earlier this week.