Since war erupted in Israel, military experts and U.S. officials have warned the conflict could potentially escalate and expand into a broader war that involves American forces. On "Outnumbered" Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg (Ret.) reacted to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates calling it the most dangerous situation he's seen since World War II ended. Kellogg, former national security adviser to VP Mike Pence, echoed the comments, cautioning the Biden White House that the crises could easily "spin out of control."
KEITH KELLOGG: You have to be very, very consistent in your actions. If you do something, we're going to respond. And if you don't, they're going to keep saying, well, how far can I push you? And I've been in those situations … when you sit in the Oval Office or you sit in the Situation Room, you know that they're testing you and they're testing the United States today. And look what we recently just said. We're talking about comments about maybe evacuating citizens from Israel. No, you stay there. We talk about evacuating embassies. No, you stay there. You don't retreat from an embassy. You reinforce an embassy. And these are just the symbols and the actions that everybody is looking for, does the United States really mean this. It's words and actions combined, and they're not doing it. I'm just telling you it's showing weakness. And they need to respond both forcefully, not posturing of forces. I hate to say this, put it this way: sometimes you have to punch the other guy in the nose to get their attention. That's what Mike Tyson used to say. I think we need to do it as well.
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Even Bob Gates made the comment, your former secretary of defense and CIA director, this is the worst he's seen the world in the last 75 years. And they compound themselves. Look, this is like a juggler juggling balls. And you add another ball and you add another ball. All of a sudden, one of them is going to drop. How you stop that is you have to attack the first incident that comes up...both diplomatically and by force as well to stop it from escalating. Escalating means more actions occur. And you're seeing that occur right now. You have it with China and Taiwan. You have North Korea. You have Ukraine. You have Russia. You have what's happening in the Middle East right now. And you can only handle so many of these effectively... If all of these come at you and they compound themselves, God only gives you so many hours in a day to respond effectively. That's when you have to, as the old Western saying is cut them off at the pass. You have to attack it early. You have to attack it forcefully. You have to attack it diplomatically and they're not doing that. And I just think this thing could spin out of control really easy if they don't watch out.
Since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, the Biden administration has been steadfast in its support for Israel and been adamantly discouraging other bad actors from taking advantage of the war.
President Biden as well as other top officials including Secretary Austin and Secretary Blinken have used the simple message "don't" when addressing those including Iran who may think of using the conflict in Israel to escalate fighting.
"Don't, don't, don't," Biden repeated at various public speeches, including a press conference in Israel and an address at the Oval Office. He also continues to emphasize the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
On Sunday, Secretary Austin said the U.S. would continue to increase its presence in the region to "send another message to those who would seek to widen this conflict."
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"If any group or any country is looking to widen this conflict and take advantage of this very unfortunate situation that we see. Our advice is don’t," he continued. "We maintain the right to defend ourselves and we won’t hesitate to take the appropriate action."
Blinken, who spent several days meeting with regional leaders in the Middle East, also suggested there was a "likelihood of escalation" while clarifying that no one wants to see Israel forced to respond to hostilities on a second or third front as it fights Hamas.
Blinken said he expects "escalation by Iranian proxies directed against our forces, directed against our personnel," and added, "We are taking steps to make sure that we can effectively defend our people and respond decisively if we need to."
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FOX News' Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.
