Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark said on Newsmax Monday that President Donald Trump was "absolutely right" to hold Iran accountable for the Houthi attacks on container ships by ordering weekend airstrikes in Yemen.
Clark told "American Agenda" that Trump did the right thing because Iran has "been behind" the Houthi attacks on international shipping vessels "the whole time."
"They're the ones that have provided the technology, the warnings, all the munitions, and so forth from the start," Clark said. "And they've used it as part of their axis of resistance against Israel and, obviously, against the United States. And they found a way of hurting people, really, by choking off the Red Sea for commerce. So it's a tremendous violation of international law. It's supported by Iran. Yes — go to the source."
Asked if he blamed the Biden administration for the current situation, Clark said, "There's no question that the policies of the previous administration on this were not effective."
"I know they came back, they took a lot of credit for handling it with diplomacy and limited strikes and so forth, as though the key was to not escalate," he said. "But the key, in this case, is escalation because you've got to win the dominance of the escalation to shut them down. And so, I totally agree with what national security adviser Mike Waltz said. He's exactly right on this."
On Sunday, Waltz said the U.S. launched its airstrikes on Yemen to go "after the Houthi leadership" while holding "Iran responsible." The strikes, he said, would be a "sustained effort" to "reopen global commerce."
In terms of what America does next, Clark said that he thinks "a couple of more steps" should be taken in Yemen "to see whether there is any response."
"I think if there isn't, then you could consider that, at least temporarily, mission accomplished," he said. "They did have one wave of responses, I'm told, of ballistic missiles fired at our aircraft carrier. Apparently nothing was effective, but that's fine. Do another round of strikes, another round after that. If there's nothing more, that's it."
Clark added, "If it escalates, you go to Iran. You take it right back to where those munitions were shipped out of. We know where they came from — ports on the Arabian Sea, ports in the Gulf. You take out those ports. Iran must pay a price for this. And if it continues to escalate, of course, Iran is going to lose its nuclear card."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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