Rep. Kinzinger: US has a lot of tools to address Iran's provocations
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger weighs in on how the Trump administration should handle Iran after the U.S. Embassy attack in Iraq.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said Thursday that he expects the United States to respond to Iran in a "measured" way with strength and assuredness after an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday.
Appearing on "America's Newsroom" with host Sandra Smith, Kinzinger said he believes Iran is trying to provoke the U.S. into one of two responses.
U.S. EMBASSY IN BAGHDAD FIRE DAMAGE SEEN IN NEW PHOTOS FOLLOWING MILITANTS' ATTACK
"They either want the U.S. to not react to provocation -- which makes us look weak," he said. "Or, they want us to overreact which, in that way, they can use...the 'blame America first' crowd in the United States here.
"Ben Rhodes -- the first thing he does in the morning is to get on Twitter and say how this is all Donald Trump's fault and not these Shia militias," Kinzinger stated. "Or those in Europe, for instance, that want to find any reason the U.S. is wrong."
"I think a proportional response like we've been seeing so far is exactly what Iran doesn't want to see. Because it doesn't turn the world against us, it really doesn't give ammo to the 'blame America' crowd, and it does impact Iran's standing," he told Smith.
"Keep in mind in the rest of the region -- in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Syria, everywhere -- people are protesting against Iranian expansion into the Middle East. So, right now they're on the decline and we're in a much better position to see this thing through," the congressman concluded.
Rhodes, a former top foreign policy adviser of President Barack Obama, lashed out at Trump's policies toward Iran in a series of recent tweets.
"Trump’s cartoonish incompetence has let the total failure of his signature natsec policies - Iran, North Korea, Venezuela - escape political and media scrutiny. But the real world consequences are now obvious," he wrote, subsequently calling Trump "an embarrassment and a danger around the world."
The U.S. State Department has since updated its travel warning for Iraq, notifying travelers that its operations there have been affected because of “damage done by Iranian-backed terrorist attacks.”
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The update comes as The Associated Press released stunning photographs showing the extent of the destruction at the embassy, which was targeted by angry mobs who were protesting recent U.S. airstrikes.
The attack -- one of the worst in recent memory -- followed deadly U.S. airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed group, the Kataeb Hezbollah. The U.S. military said the strikes were in retaliation for last week's killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base, which the U.S. blamed on the militia.
Fox News' Greg Norman, Charles Creitz, Lucia I. Suarez Sang, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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