Congress Wants Biden to Increase Pressure on Iran

The US Senate warned President Joe Biden about the increasing Houthi attacks on US allies, and lawmakers intensified their pressure on the administration to re-designate the militias on the list of terrorism.

In a rare move, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell dedicated his daily inaugural statement to address Iran's proxies in the region, referring to the recent Houthi attacks on the UAE.

McConnell said that for a third straight week, "the UAE was targeted by a Houthi missile attack, made possible by Tehran," adding that the terrorists targeted an airbase that hosts 2,000 US personnel last week.

The Republican leader indicated that the US faces Iranian-backed threats alongside partners like Israel and the UAE. "But you wouldn't know it by looking at President Biden's foreign policy."

He indicated that a year ago, the State Department removed Yemen's Houthi terrorists from its list of foreign terrorist organizations, and since then, "the Iranian proxy terrorists have only increased their attacks, underwritten by Iranian money and technology."

Last month the Biden Administration was reportedly considering reversing its decision.

McConnell warned that if the administration chooses to "shrug or look the other way when Iran targets our friends and our interests," and if they continue to withhold military capabilities from partners threatened by Iran, then they should not pretend to be surprised when traditional US partners in the Middle East start looking to Moscow and Beijing to fill the vacuum.

McConnell's statements reflect the growing concern of lawmakers about the threat of Iran's proxies to the interests of the United States in the region.

Republicans accuse the White House of reluctance to redesignate Houthis on the terrorist list for fear of angering Tehran.

It was reflected in McConnell's statements, who stated that the most significant distraction keeping this administration's attention from protecting its interests in the Middle East "has been its ongoing obsession with returning to the Obama Administration's failed 2015 nuclear agreement."

The Republican Senator made severe accusations against Biden, saying that "by blaming their predecessor's 'maximum pressure' approach and demonstrating an unwillingness to respond forcefully to Iranian-backed terrorist attacks, the administration effectively took the threat of sanctions or military action off the table, neutering their diplomacy at the outset."

Meanwhile, bipartisan representatives are increasing pressure on the US administration in this regard.

Representatives Seth Moulton and Mike Waltz will soon send a letter to Biden urging him to redesignate the Houthis in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization, a move the president said is under consideration.

In the letter shared by Politico, the two officials said they understand that "removing the designation was meant to help the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, but it has done little outside of emboldening the Houthis to escalate their attacks and block reconciliation efforts in the country."

The letter discussed the importance of the partnership between the United States and the UAE, saying it is a "critical time to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with an important ally while they are under assault, reiterating our commitment to the US-UAE strategic partnership."

In the face of these efforts, the liberals from the Democratic Party are resisting taking a step of this kind, saying it obstructs humanitarian aid to Yemen.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy mocked the calls for designating Houthi a terrorist organization.

The Senator said in a tweet: "Designating the Houthis as a terrorist organization" sounds better than "an American blockade of food imports to Yemen to intentionally cause mass civilian starvation." But FYI, under US law, they are the same thing."

Discussion in the West about arming Ukraine with nuclear weapons is "absolutely irresponsible", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, in response to a report in the New York Times citing unidentified officials who suggested such a possibility.

The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested US President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons before he leaves office.

"Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications," the newspaper wrote.

Asked about the report, Peskov told reporters: "These are absolutely irresponsible arguments of people who have a poor understanding of reality and who do not feel a shred of responsibility when making such statements. We also note that all of these statements are anonymous."

Earlier, senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said that if the West supplied nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow could consider such a transfer to be tantamount to an attack on Russia, providing grounds for a nuclear response.

Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union after its 1991 collapse, but gave them up under a 1994 agreement, the Budapest Memorandum, in return for security assurances from Russia, the United States and Britain.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last month that as Ukraine had handed over the nuclear weapons, joining NATO was the only way it could deter Russia.

The 33-month Russia-Ukraine war saw escalations on both sides last week, after Ukraine fired US and British missiles into Russia for the first time, with permission from the West, and Moscow responded by launching a new hypersonic intermediate-range missile into Ukraine.

Asked about the risk of a nuclear escalation, Peskov said the West should "listen carefully" to Putin and read Russia's newly updated nuclear doctrine, which lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons.

Separately, Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said Moscow opposes simply freezing the conflict in Ukraine because it needs a "solid and long-term peace" that resolves the core reasons for the crisis.

Congress Wants Biden to Increase Pressure on Iran