Asked If He Supports Israel Bombing Iran Nuclear Sites, Biden Says 'No'

In what some critics decried as a performative reply, U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would not support any Israeli bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities—a statement that came as the world braced for Israel's response to Tuesday's Iranian missile strike on its main Middle East adversary.

Biden replied that "the answer is no" when asked by a reporter on the runway at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland if he'd back an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites.

However, critics noted that Biden also said he would not deploy more U.S. troops to the Middle East late last month—just before ordering thousands more troops and weaponry to the region amid rising tensions.

"If recent history is a guide, this means Israel will do this, and then the White House will defend them doing it after the fact anyway," Palestinian-American author Yousef Munayyer said on social media Wednesday.

Members of Israel's far-right government including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said repeatedly that Israel will do whatever it takes to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

An Israeli attack on another Middle Eastern nation's nuclear facilities is not unprecedented. In June 1981, Israeli forces launched Operation Opera, an airstrike on an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad. Jeane Kirkpatrick, then-President Ronald Reagan's United Nations ambassador, condemned the strike as comparable to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

"I swear, Armageddon is near," Reagan, a Republican, wrote in his diary at the time. "It's time to raise hell."

Biden's rejection of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites comes as the Middle East and the world awaits Israel's response to Tuesday's largely ineffective Iranian missile attack, which killed no Israelis.

Netanyahu said Tuesday that Iran made a "big mistake" for which it "will pay."

Iranian Permanent Representative to the U.N. Amir Saeid Iravani in turn threatened a "swift, decisive, and stronger response" should Israel retaliate against his country.

The heightened Mideast tensions come as Israel continues its war on Gaza—for which it is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice—and escalates the wider conflict by invading Lebanon and carrying out airstrikes on countries including Yemen and Syria.