we are back with a fox news alert at
least
17 people are reportedly dead after the
u.s
military carried out an airstrike on
iranian-backed forces in syria it comes
two weeks after an attack on american
personnel in iraq that killed one
contractor and left others hurt
including
one u.s service member national security
analyst dr rebecca grant joins us now dr
grant
great to see you as always here's the
statement from the pentagon
on these strikes quote the operation
sends an unambiguous message
president biden will act to protect
american coalition personnel
at the same time we have acted in a
deliberate manner
that aims to de-escalate the overall
situation in both eastern syria
and iraq is the biden administration
accomplishing
these varied goals dr grant
yes this airstrike carried out by the
f-15es
is a good move by secretary of defense
austin
good move by u.s air power and it's
directly written retaliation for the
strike on the green zone
and this just shows you that iran is all
over
this region with its terrorist convoy
points and this was a good move by the
u.s
and our coalition partners let's go
ahead and take a listen to what mike
pompeo had to say on this last night
you've got to protect your force you've
got to establish deterrence we hope it
really went after something that
threatened the united states of america
we've got to make sure that we deter the
iranians every place
weakness and appeasement of the iranians
will only be rewarded with more terror
from them
do you think that this is the first step
in the biden administration showing
that they aren't going to be weak when
it comes to this that they are showing
enough force or do you think that they
could show more
i hope so this shows that they have to
deal with the reality
of iran on the ground and remember
secretary of defense lloyd austin was
the commander there against isis
they carried out literally tens of
thousands of airstrikes like this
and this also shows that they're very
closely watching with drones and other
surveillance they see
iraq trying to spread sorry iran trying
to spread weapons around that area
the iraqis watch this closely too so the
reality is
team biden has to deal with iran's
destabilization in syria and across that
region
meantime dr grant president biden speaks
to saudi king salman before the expected
release of that u.s intel report on the
killing
of jamal khashoggi what are the
ramifications to all of this for u.s
saudi relations
well i'm worried that there could be a
wrong turn in u.s saudi relations
saudi arabia is an important ally and
while we were all horrified
at the khashoggi killing saudi arabia
hosted
the g20 economic forum just a few months
ago
and right now i'm afraid that biden is a
little out of step
with our u.s allies like britain's boris
johnson who talks regularly with both
the prince and the king so we need to be
very careful here and make sure that we
preserve that important alliance and i'm
worried that a wrong turn in u.s saudi
relations
plays a little bit into the hands of
iran that's what i was actually just
going to ask how far do you think that
that would go i mean how happy would it
make iran to see the united states
coming out against saudi arabia oh
iran will be happy because remember
there is a cold war between
iran and saudi arabia iran and militias
like the ones that we saw attacking in
iraq
they regularly launch missiles into
saudi arabia so
coldness from the u.s towards saudi
arabia plays directly into iran's hands
and i worry that that shows iran that
the biden team might be warming up to
them
that's not what we want we want a better
agreement controls on the missiles
and a wrong turn in u.s saudi relations
this is no time to go down that road
15 seconds for this last answer what can
the saudis do to make our lives
difficult
the saudis need to continue to become
that
leading regional power that they want to
do and we don't want to see them slip
closer to
china for example so it's important to
maintain that u.s saudi
relationship it's really a pillar of
security and for our military forces
in the region okay dr rebecca grant with
great insight there this morning thank
you for joining us have a good day
thank you thank you notice how china
sneaks into it yeah everything
situation