As Iran launches missile attack on Israel, GOP lawmaker calls for US intervention

WASHINGTON (CN) — As Iranian missiles were still falling across Israel Tuesday, one of the Senate’s top Republican lawmakers argued that this latest attack should prompt a military response from Washington.

The Israeli Defense Forces announced Tuesday that missiles from Iran had been launched into Israel in a series of barrages that Jerusalem estimated put as many as 10 million civilians in harm’s way. Though no casualties have been officially reported, clips posted to social media during the bombardment appeared to show Iranian missiles falling on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere inside Israel.

The strike represents a further escalation in conflict between Israel, Iran and its proxies. Hours earlier, Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon in a campaign against Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Jerusalem also assassinated the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, late last week.

In Washington, lawmakers were quick to react to the developing attack with messages of support for Israel and rebukes of Tehran — the sharpest of which came from South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who became one of the first members of Congress to call on President Joe Biden to intervene.

“This is a moment of choosing for the free world regarding Iran,” the top Senate Republican wrote in a statement posted Tuesday to X, formerly Twitter.

Calling the missile attack against Israel a “breaking point,” Graham urged the White House to coordinate an overwhelming military response with Jerusalem. Any retaliation, he added, should be centered squarely on Iran’s oil infrastructure.

“These oil refineries need to be hit and hit hard because that is the source of cash for the regime to perpetrate their terror,” Graham wrote.

In a later post, the senator said he had spoken with former President Donald Trump about the attacks and said the Republican presidential candidate was “determined and resolved” to protect Israel from Iran.

“The only thing that the Iranian regime understands is strength,” he wrote. “Now is the time to show unified resolve against Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism. We need decisive action, not just statements.”

Though the senator was clear in his view that the U.S. should be involved in any military response to Tuesday’s strike from Iran, some of his GOP colleagues were less willing to roll Washington into Israel’s next move.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune said that the U.S. supports Israeli’s right to “defend itself and its people” against attacks from Iran and its proxies but stopped short of making the case for intervention.

Florida Senator Rick Scott wrote that Washington should give Jerusalem “everything it needs” to respond to the bombardment and make it clear that Iran will “pay dearly” for attacking Israel. But Scott similarly did not implicate the U.S. military in any such response.

Republicans also did not miss an opportunity to lay the blame for Tehran’s missile strike at the feet of the Biden administration, even as the attacks continued.

“Four years ago, Iran was weak, broke and powerless,” Scott said, arguing that Tuesday’s attack was only possible thanks to “years of appeasement” from the White House.

And the Senate Republicans’ official X account reposted a Sept. 24 statement from Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin in which the lawmaker claimed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris “cower” to Iran and embolden its proxies.

The Biden administration has pursued certain sanctions relief on Iran, most recently in August 2023 when it unfroze roughly $6 billion in oil revenue owed by South Korea but trapped in the country thanks to economic barricades. Washington freed up those assets in exchange for five U.S. citizens held hostage by Tehran.

The White House said at the time that the unfrozen cash could only be used for humanitarian purposes and that the Treasure Department would monitor the accounts where the funds were located.

Meanwhile, some Democrats also weighed in on the Iranian strikes Tuesday.

California Representative Adam Schiff said he was grateful that the White House acted “promptly” to defend Israel against the bombardment which he positioned as a direct response to the assassination of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said the U.S. should stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Israel and that Washington is prepared to defend the country from Iran. “Our support is unwavering and unshakeable,” she wrote in a statement.

The White House said it was monitoring the situation.

Tehran in April launched a similar strike in response to Israel’s bombing of its embassy in Damascus which killed a pair of Iranian generals. That attack, Iran’s first direct attack on Israel, damaged some military airbases and wounded more than two dozen people.

Follow @BenjaminSWeiss