(NEW YORK) — After a top Hamas political leader was assassinated in Tehran last week, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said the United States is “preparing for every possibility” regarding potential retaliation from Iran.
“I won’t lay out what I expect Iran to do, because I don’t think we want to show our hand in that way,” Finer told ABC News “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “But I will tell you, we’re preparing for every possibility just as we did in advance of April 13 when Iran attacked Israel, and the United States and a coalition of our partners and allies worked with Israel to defeat that attack.”
The Pentagon on Friday announced new defensive measures that it said in a statement were “designed to improve U.S. force protection, to increase support for the defense of Israel, and to ensure the United States is prepared to respond to various contingencies.” Those force posture adjustments include sending an additional fighter squadron and more warships into the Middle East.
Finer noted the action and said that, at the same time, the U.S. is “working very hard to de-escalate this situation diplomatically.”
When asked by Stephanopoulos if there are any back-channel conversations with Iran about how to contain the escalation, Finer was tight-lipped but said the U.S. is doing everything it can to make sure the conflict doesn’t expand.
“Part of what makes back-channel messages and conversations effective is that they need to stay private,” Finer said. “So I won’t speak to the details of the diplomatic activity that is underway other than to say in close coordination and conjunction with our Israeli allies and other partners and allies in the region. We’re doing everything possible to make sure that this situation does not boil over.”
President Joe Biden and other top administration officials are still pushing for Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire to end the war in Gaza, launched shortly after Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
But concerns about reaching such a deal grew last week after both a Hezbollah commander, Fouad Shukr, and a top Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, were killed in separate incidents. Israel took responsibility for the strike that killed Shukr but has not said if it was also behind the attack that killed Haniyeh in Tehran, which Iran has blamed on Israel.
On “This Week,” Finer emphasized that achieving a cease-fire remains a top priority for the White House.
“Part of why we think this is so urgent is because in the context like this in which there are hostilities taking place throughout the region, there is always some outside factor that can intervene and interfere and make these negotiations harder,” he said. “So we want this deal to take place as soon as possible before that happens again.”
Turning to the historic 24-person prisoner swap last week that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, Finer said the freed Americans were “overwhelmingly happy” when they spoke to the president and their families upon touching down in Turkey on their return to the United States.
“The president and their families were gathered in the Oval Office and they showed just extraordinary strength,” Finer said. “It was quite a moving scene.”
In a separate “This Week” interview on Sunday, Wall Street Journal publisher and Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour told Stephanopoulos that he spoke to Gershkovich on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews and again over the weekend and that he “is doing well.”
“You saw a lot of energy when he got off that plane, and he still has a lot of energy,” Latour said.
When asked about the role the Wall Street Journal played in the negotiations, Latour said that “constant advocacy” was key.
“Our part was to make sure that there was constant advocacy with decision-makers, seen [and] unseen, getting public statements out there, but also, making sure people would see the suffering that the parents were going through, the assault on free press,” he said.
“The newsroom did its part in reporting and having the emotional support, putting a spotlight on it. But as a company, we wanted to get our guy back and we pushed really hard,” he added.
On Gershkovich’s request for an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which the reporter made in a statement for his clemency hearing, Latour said it showed that Evan’s journalistic spirit is not lost.
“He’s a journalist with a hunger for stories. He’s a storyteller,” he said.
“Boy, wouldn’t that be an amazing thing to see,” Latour added.
While the historic prisoner exchange has been met with a great deal of praise, several top Republicans have also criticized the deal, arguing that swapping innocent Americans for Russian criminals sets a dangerous precedent, which Finer pushed back on.
“We do not think that it is responsible or the right thing to do for American interests to leave those people in harm’s way,” he said Sunday. “So the president, from the moment he took office, has prioritized getting Americans who were in captivity when we came here out, and those who have been taken since, trying to free them, as well.”
“He makes no apologies for doing that,” Finer told Stephanopoulos.
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