GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley was asked about what the U.S. response should be after three U.S. troops were killed and dozens more injured over the weekend by terrorists in league with the despotic theocratic Islamic regime of Iran.
Haley appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday morning.
Co-host Andrew Sorkin asked, “Three troops killed over the weekend and possibly 25 or 30 others injured on the border of Jordan and Syria. What would you be doing right about now in terms of what’s happening in the Middle East? Would we be going to war?”
“The goal is always to prevent war,” Haley replied. “What makes me angry is my husband serving overseas. Military families want to know their loved ones are protected. Biden didn’t protect them and there have been 160 strikes. There shouldn’t have been one. There shouldn’t have been two. And you’ve got 160 and you’ve got dozens injured. We lost three heroes because Biden was scared of his own shadow. That’s the truth.”
“What would that mean in practice?” Sorkin pressed. “When you say Biden didn’t do something, what was that something that he should have been doing?”
“The very first strike that hit, you punch and you punch back hard,” Haley answered. “What they should be doing is going after every ounce of production of those missiles. Wherever those missiles are you take that out. You take out the training sites.”
“Does that risk escalating a war?” Sorkin asked, followed by co-host Becky Quick asking, “Does that mean striking Iran directly?”
“It means striking the resources that are allowing them to hurt our troops. That’s what you’re doing,” Haley explained.
“They’re backed by Iran. Iran is not declaring the shots, but Iran is training them; providing intelligence, they’re providing weapons,” Quick noted.
“There would be no Hamas without Iran; Hezbollah without Iran or Houthis without Iran,” Haley pointed out.
“But striking Iran is a really big escalation,” Quick protested.
Haley stated that it was necessary to target the leaders behind the anti-U.S. attacks, citing former President Trump targeting leading Iranian terrorist Qasem General Soleimani for assassination: “You go after wherever those missiles are, the production, wherever it is, in Iraq and Syria, you take that out. Wherever it is in Lebanon that they’re doing that, you take that out. You go after the leaders making the decisions. It’s not after Iran the country; it’s after the people who are making these decisions. When Soleimani was assassinated, it sent a chill up their spine… It took their breath out. You have to be strategic. It’s not starting war; it’s actually preventing war.”
"What would you be doing right now in the Middle East. Would we be going to war?" @andrewrsorkin asks @NikkiHaley."
"The goal is always to prevent war," Haley says. "We lost three heroes because Biden was afraid of his shadow." pic.twitter.com/oFMiBrIHYg
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) January 29, 2024
