Concern Over Iranian Action on ‘Soft Targets’ as US Pulls Staff From Lebanon Embassy Analyst

And Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to brief top congressional leaders later in the day. The group is known as the Gang of Eight. The lawmakers are expected to receive an update on Iran. On February 19th, Trump said he was giving Tehran 10 to 15 days to reach a deal. And as mentioned, non-essential personnel are being pulled from the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon. Let's find out more about this and how it relates to regional tensions from our next guest. Please welcome Jacob Alladort, the director at the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute. Thanks for your time, Jacob. What are the driving factors behind the State Department's decision here? Well, thank you so much for having me. This is a momentous time in the region and in the world right now. So the main driving factor here for the State Department and for all of our partners in the region is the anticipation of what Iran's response might be and what they might do, frankly, in anticipation of anything that we do. And we know that calls have gone out from Iran's leadership to its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and others around the region. And so the first priority for the United States is the safety and security of American personnel in the region and American citizens in the region beyond officials. And so that, I think, is where the focus is as preparations are in place for potential next steps, however we choose to engage next. Yes, and history tells us that Iran is not afraid to use its proxies to stage assaults on American bases or other hardware or assets in the region. Now, how does U.S. pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear program, both diplomatically and the threat of strikes, play into the decision to vacate the non-essential personnel from the embassy in Lebanon? Well, it's informed by the assumption, reasonably so by history, that Iran will take action against what are called soft targets, that's community centers and other, as well as diplomatic outposts and bases. We saw over the weekend, just as one example, after the EU announced that it was designating the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, Iran announced rather comically that European navies and air forces would be designated as terrorist organizations. This is a replay of what they did when the United States designated the IRGC as such, and they designated the same about CENTCOM. And so, it is on some level, a lot of bark, but there is bite to it as well. And that's something that we need to take very seriously about what those actions could be. All that being said, there's a whole other calculus and question about whether proxies will engage and to what degree. We have seen over the last two years, notably Hezbollah as well, exercise restraint and not get involved, recognizing the immediate costs to its infrastructure, to its personnel doing so. And so, whether or not Iran's plans of having its proxies participate, materialize remains, to my mind, an open question. Well, I'm following all that you're laying out here, and it certainly is an ironic projection from Iran given that it itself is a state sponsor of terrorism. Now, does this drawdown of personnel from a key Middle East nation likely send a signal to Iran, or is this mostly protection measure? It's mostly protection measure. Lebanon is a very particular situation there where you do have still a sizable Hezbollah presence and concerns, frankly, about their security and military infrastructure still being at the behest of Iran's foremost world proxy, their Hezbollah, founded in the early 80s. And so, I think the threats and risks in Lebanon to American personnel remain acute. Again, not knowing exactly the scale and consequences of military engagement towards Iran, but appreciating that it might be potentially bigger than what we've seen before. And so, yeah, it's still an unknown question about what that response could be and what the risk is. And have military conflicts between Israel's IDF and the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon been a factor in U.S. diplomatic decisions like this one, especially since, as we've been covering, Israel says it will hit civilian infrastructure in Lebanon if Hezbollah involves itself in any potential conflict between the U.S. and Iran. Well, it's a good question. And Hezbollah traditionally has played the role as Iran's buffer against attacks against it. Of course, that buffer has evaporated quickly in the last two years, especially with the direct confrontations between Iran and Israel. But still, Hezbollah, should military action take place and should there be any regional engagement, the very first order to go out will be on Iran's side to Hezbollah to attack Israel with its broad ballistic missile arsenal and drones. Israel, of course, has a very sophisticated intelligence awareness of all of these capabilities and movements. And so, what it has done more recently is preemptively take out the launchers, the missiles, and even the commanders of Hezbollah to avoid that scenario of an all-out assault against the Jewish state. And so, that is, it's a real factor in any kind of regional escalation that might materialize. So, that's a plan that obviously the Israelis are anticipating as well. Thank you for that, Jacob. And it's just such a complicated setting, the Middle East. Can you give us a broad overview of the administration's approach, the Trump administration, as it compares to past presidents, Obama and his Iran nuclear deals, and how Trump has moved away from that framework? And also, you know, Trump's, first of all, securing peace, at least in phases here with his peace plan between Israel and Gaza, Israel and the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza. Absolutely. The president has laid out very clearly the objective of ending endless wars. Iran has been waging the longest, endless, forever war against the American people in half a century. And the president has also made it a consistent theme to ensure Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. Those have been themes and priorities of the administration consistently. How it achieves those, as you heard the press secretary say there, diplomacy is always the first course of action, but there is the military option right there and ready should diplomacy not produce the intended effects. This is, by the way, also a president in an administration that has demonstrated time and again that he will stop at nothing to protect Americans and take bold action when their physical safety and security is at risk. We saw this in 2020 when he took the bold move of removing from the battlefield Iran's architect of terror, Qasem Soleimani. That significantly changed Iran's strategic posture there. So that, I think, those have been departures from what we've seen in recent years, especially administrations, Obama particularly, which thought that there might be a moderate element in the regime, that there might be a deal to be had, and a deal that, on the flawed assumption that A, that the United States should provide sanctions relief, which Obama did, which only went into the Mullahs' coffers and funded their reign of terror, and also was very incomplete in that it provided no transparency, no finite end to the nuclear program, just kind of sunset clauses, as they're called, of just when it would expire. And so those are just examples of flawed approaches in the past. So this president is taking a very different approach, and I think what we'll see here is obviously an appreciation as well of the global ramifications of just how important a moment this is, and how you're seeing the administration calibrate so carefully to understand the right moment and the right measure of when diplomacy and potentially other measures might be needed. And building off of what you're saying here, Jacob, from what critics call Obama's approach of appeasement to the Iranian regime, to now Trump taking a radically different approach, and like you said, taking out Soleimani and also Operation Midnight Hammer to strike the nuclear targets directly if they're not cooperating, what advice do you have for Americans here in closing who may be considering a trip to Middle East or who may have family there? Yeah, I would say now is probably not a time to travel to the Middle East. It's a time to remain safe. But I think the larger question right now, I mean, this will be a kitchen table conversation for our generation, whatever happens next in Iran. Iran has always been a defining issue for presidencies, as you mentioned, and I think you're looking at Iran, Carter in particular, Obama, and Trump in the first administration, and even now with Operation Midnight Hammer, have already changed history and global security as well. And so I think whatever happens next will change fundamentally, I believe, our priorities around the world. And Iran's threats run into our hemisphere, its funding and support for adversarial regimes, all the way to Russia's war against Ukraine, where Iran provides ballistic missiles and drones. And then, of course, Iran providing oil to China and so forth. And so this will have downstream effects on all those issues, however we engage. Well, we've certainly been tracking President Trump's so-called peace through strength actions that we've seen, and we're going to keep an eye on it. Jacob Alador, thanks for coming on our show and explaining all of this. Thank you so much.