In a high-level meeting with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan about a month ago, President Biden was presented with a number of strike options Iran has started developing nuclear weaponsAxios reported on Friday.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about strike options, but according to the report, Biden has not signed off on any plans to attack Iran’s nuclear program.
Biden has vowed not to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons while he is on watch, but it remains unclear what steps Iran would have to take in order for the Biden administration to respond with direct strikes, given that Tehran has already reported that stockpile of weapons-grade uranium and to strengthen its weaponry capabilities.
A large banner depicting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is placed next to a ballistic missile in Baharestan Square in Tehran, Iran, September 26, 2024, along the edge of an exhibition marking the 44th anniversary of the start of the Iran-Iraq War. (Photo: Hossein Beris / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP via Getty Images)
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The president was reportedly presented with a number of scenarios and response options during the meeting, although sources said Biden had not made any final decision regarding the information he received.
Another source reportedly said there are currently no active discussions about military strike on the Iranian program.
Biden has repeatedly warned Israel against attacking Tehran’s nuclear program as tensions between the two nations reached a boiling point last year amid clashes with Hamas and Hezbollah – both of which have been backed by Iran.
But some aides close to the president reportedly argued that the US has an “imperative” and an “opportunity” to strike at Tehran’s nuclear ambitions given its efforts to accelerate its program and its weakened position with respect to significantly degraded the position of the Iranian intermediary forces.
Sources told Axios that Sullivan did not advise the president to take any action, but merely presented him with scenarios.
US President Joe Biden speaks with his national security adviser Jake Sullivan during a roundtable discussion with Jewish community leaders in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on October 11, 2023 in Washington, DC (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
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The report also said the national security adviser, along with other aides to the president, believed the degraded nature of Iran’s air defense and missile capabilities and weakened intermediary forces could increase the likelihood of a successful attack and reduce the possibility of Iranian retaliation.
Biden reportedly focused on the issue of urgency and whether Iran has taken concrete steps to justify a military strike that could spark a conflict just weeks before the new administration takes office — though it remains unclear what those steps would include.
“You can look at the public statements of Iranian officials, which have changed over the last few months as these strategic strikes have been dealt, to ask the question: Do we have to change our doctrine at some point? The fact that it’s coming out publicly is something that has to be watched. very carefully,” Sullivan said during a speech in New York just a week before Christmas.
Iranian protesters carry flowers as they stand in front of a giant banner depicting the portrait of Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah during a protest rally to condemn an Israeli airstrike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in a suburb of Beirut, and the killing of Hassan Nasrallah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Force Commander Quds Force, General Abbas Nilforoushan, in Tehran, Iran, September 30, 2024. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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He also pointed to the strikes Iran has suffered this year and argued they could encourage Iran to develop nuclear weapons rather than deter it.
“It creates choices for that opponent that can be quite dangerous, and that’s something we have to be extremely careful about as we move forward,” Sullivan said.
