• Frank McKenzie, former head of US Central Command, said the US is sending the wrong deterrence message.

• The retired general does not support attacks on Iran, but he says the country should be worried.

• Retaliatory US strikes have been focused on IRGC and Iran-backed militia targets outside Iran.

The US should be signaling that Iran is a potential target so that they are "held at risk," according to retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, a former head of US Central Command.

"I am not advocating for striking Iran," McKenzie told Margaret Brennan on CBS News' Face the Nation on Sunday. "I am advocating that they need to be in the space of possible targets."

The US carried out airstrikes against targets associated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq last Friday in retaliation for a drone attack on Jan. 28 that killed three US service members at a base in Jordan. The strikes have since been followed by others against the militias.

Days before the start of the retaliatory campaign, President Joe Biden said he held Iran responsible for supporting the militias that committed the attack on the base in Jordan, but he also stated that he didn't want to ignite a wider war in the Middle East.

In the interview with CBS News on Sunday, McKenzie took issue with the US signaling it is unwilling to escalate and that strikes against Iran are not on the table. The appropriate strategy, he said Sunday, is to make sure that Iran maintains some level of uneasiness.

"What we want to do is induce in their minds and their cognitive space, a concern about continuing on this path and what it might mean to them," he said.

The retired general said that if the US does not treat Iran like a potential target and signals that only the Iran-backed militias are in the crosshairs, then that gives Iran a sense of relief, which is "not a good thing to do."

For a time, US responses to the actions of Iran-backed militias were also limited. Retired Gen. Joseph Votel, another former CENTCOM commander, told Business Insider in December that the US needed to respond more aggressively to the attacks.

"They have to be held accountable and we have to go after them, I think, more aggressively than we have," he said of the militia groups. "It does not appear to me that the actions we've taken so far have really caused them to change their behavior."

The US is now taking regular actions against militant groups and their capabilities, but not Iran. Following the recent US strikes, Biden released a statement saying that the administration's response "will continue at times and places of our choosing."

Senior Iranian officials warned last week that the country will retaliate if attacked. Tehran's foreign ministry said it had nothing to do with the Jan. 28 attack and that it does not direct the militia organizations it backs. Iran, however, has long armed and equipped militant groups throughout the region.

Iran says US strikes are a 'strategic mistake'

US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden attended a repatriation ceremony for three American soldiers killed in a drone attack.

Iran has called US air strikes on Iraq and Syria a "strategic mistake" after 85 targets were hit across the region on Friday.

The US launched retaliatory strikes in response to last week's drone attack on a US military base that killed three American soldiers.

The White House blamed the drone attack on an Iran-backed militia group.

The US and UK also launched a new round of joint strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday.

Iran's foreign ministry said the strikes on Iraq and Syria "will have no result other than intensifying tensions and instability in the region".

Earlier, Iraq said the US retaliatory strikes would bring "disastrous consequences" for the region.

At least 16 people, including civilians, were killed as a result of the strikes, Iraqi officials said.

A spokesman for Iraq's prime minister said the strikes were a "violation" of his country's sovereignty and that they would impact "the security and stability of Iraq and the region".

While Syria said the US "occupation" of Syrian territory "cannot continue".

According to a US military statement, the US struck Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militias in Iraq and Syria.

Several US aircraft were involved, including long-range bombers that flew over from the US.

Seven locations were hit - four in Syria and three in Iraq - with more than 85 targets being struck, the US military said.

There have been no strikes on Iranian soil.

Since Friday's US strikes in Iraq and Syria, there has been one attack on American forces, a US defence official told the BBC's US partner CBS News.

The attack in question targeted US forces based at the Mission Support Site Euphrates in Syria using rockets, but no injuries were reported.

President Joe Biden said the US attacks "will continue at times and places of our choosing" but added his country "does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world".

The strikes come after three US troops were killed and dozens injured in a drone attack on a US base near Jordan's border with Syria.

US officials said the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an Iranian-backed militia group, was responsible for the attack. The drone was Iranian-made, they said, and similar to the ones being supplied to Russia.

The militant organisation - an umbrella group of multiple militias - is believed to have been armed, funded and trained by the IRGC.

Iran has denied any role in the attack on the US base, saying it was "not involved in the decision making of resistance groups".

A spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry said US strikes on Iraq, Syria and Yemen "merely provide for the goals of the Zionist regime", referring to US ally Israel.

Russia has called for an "urgent" meeting of the UN Security Council "over the threat to peace and safety created by US strikes on Syria and Iraq", Moscow's diplomat at the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said on social media.

Russia - a permanent council member - has become a close ally of Iran.

The US attacks came several hours after Mr Biden attended a repatriation ceremony for William Rivers, 46, Kennedy Sanders, 24, and Breonna Moffett, 23, who died in the attack last weekend.

More than 40 other service members were injured in the same drone attack, which struck the US Tower 22 base.

US Republicans criticised the timing of the retaliatory strikes, saying that the US had waited too long to strike back. American officials said any hold up was due to cloudy weather obstructing targets.

Some foreign policy experts believe the delay allowed Iran to withdraw personnel, potentially avoiding a wider conflict between the US and Iran.

US warns of further retaliation if Iran-backed militias continue their attacks

After a weekend of retaliatory strikes, the United States on Sunday warned Iran and the militias it arms and funds that it will conduct more attacks if American forces in the Mideast continue to be targeted, but that it does not want an “open-ended military campaign” across the region.

Jake Sullivan Says U.S. Will Take ‘Further Action’ After Bombing Middle East

National security adviser Jake Sullivan has said that the United States will take “further action” following the country’s retaliatory airstrikes this weekend in multiple Middle Eastern countries — a move that could possibly result in a broader regional conflict.

In the past few days, the U.S. has launched strikes in Iraq, Syria and Yemen in what officials say is an effort to target Iran-backed militias. The strikes are in retaliation for a recent drone attack by militants that killed three American military personnel in Jordan – the first attack to result in U.S. combat deaths from such militias since the violence between Israel and Hamas escalated on Oct. 7.

“From our perspective, each action that we take is targeted at reducing the capabilities of the militias to be able to continue to conduct attacks against us and to send a clear message that the United States will respond when our forces are attacked, and we will respond with strength in a sustained way when American casualties are incurred,” Sullivan told Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

The adviser did not directly answer Bash’s question on how he defines success when it comes to the U.S. retaliatory campaign.

On Friday night, the U.S. military launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iran-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The military then launched strikes overnight Sunday across several Yemeni provinces allegedly held by the Houthi rebels, an attack the U.S. said targeted underground missile arsenals.

Sullivan told Bash that the U.S. will “take further action” when it comes to more strikes in the region, but declined to describe what such action looks like “because I don’t want to telegraph our punches.” He also refused to rule out whether the military would launch strikes inside Iran, a move that could very likely bring the U.S. into yet another war in the Middle East.

“We are not looking to take the United States to war. So we are going to continue to pursue a policy that goes down both of those lines simultaneously, that responds with force and clarity, as we did on Friday night, but also that continues to hew to an approach that does not get the United States pulled into a war that we have seen too frequently in the Middle East,” Sullivan said.

“Past presidents have had to deal with a significant number of American casualties and American deaths in the Middle East because of war,” he continued. “This president is looking to defend our interests and to defend our troops.”

During a separate appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Sullivan told moderator Kristen Welker that the U.S. government is still assessing the damage from the strikes and could not confirm whether the attacks resulted in any civilian casualties or deaths of militant leaders.

“We do not have, at this time, any confirmation of any civilian casualties. Our military is still looking at that,” the adviser said. “What we do know is that the targets we hit were absolutely valid targets from the point of view of containing the weaponry and the personnel that were attacking American forces. So, we are confident in the targets that we struck, and I will defer to a final analysis the question of who was taken out among militant leaders.”

Militia groups in the Middle East said they have intensified their attacks on ships in the Red Sea and on U.S. bases due to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza, which escalated after Hamas launched a deadly attack on Oct. 7 against the country and took hostages.

Despite Israel now being accused at the international level of Palestinian ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide, the U.S. continues to be Israel’s strongest ally, supporting the country diplomatically and financially.

Sullivan told Welker that the U.S. does not believe the attacks by Houthi rebels on ships in the Red Sea are “entirely tied to the war in Gaza,” though the rebels themselves have said their attacks are justified due to Israel’s actions.

“Those attacks will not discourage Yemeni forces and the nation from maintaining their support for Palestinians in the face of the Zionist occupation and crimes,” Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree told The Associated Press. “The aggressors’ airstrikes will not go unanswered.”