US braces for Iran attack against Israel

WASHINGTON — The U.S. and its allies are sounding an unusually urgent alarm over Iran’s possible plans to retaliate in the coming days over Israel’s purported killing of senior Iranian officials at a diplomatic mission in Syria.

President Joe Biden said Friday the U.S. is “devoted” to defending Israel and “Iran will not succeed.”

Biden answered a couple of shouted questions at the White House on Friday, after delivering a virtual speech to the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network Convention on racial justice in New York.

Asked what his message was for Iran, the president’s only reply was: “Don’t.”

He was asked about the possibility of deploying additional U.S. troops to the Middle East and said, “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel.”

“We will help defend Israel, and Iran will not succeed,” Biden added. He ignored a question about what would trigger a direct U.S. military response.

Asked how imminent an Iranian attack on Israel was, Biden said he didn’t want to get into secure information, “but my expectation is sooner than later.”

U.S. officials said this week that Iran appears to be lining up a series of potential retaliations, including direct attacks on Israeli assets — within Israel territory or at diplomatic missions, or operations carried out by proxy groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon on Israel’s northern border, and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expressed similar thoughts. “Threats by Iran are inadmissible,” he said.

The trigger for the latest Israel-Iran standoff is the April 1 bombing of an Iranian building adjacent to the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, in which seven high-ranking Iranian military officers from the Islamic Republican Guard were killed.

Iran maintains the attack on its diplomatic mission violated international law. U.S. officials say regardless of whether the building had diplomatic status, it was being used to conduct what they call “terrorist” operations targeting Israel from Lebanon.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made clear “that escalation is not in anyone’s interest, and that countries should urge Iran not to escalate,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Thursday. “Escalation is not in Iran’s interest, it’s not in the region’s interest, and it’s not in the world’s interest.”