The chairman and members of the House Homeland Security Committee sent a letter to President Obama on Tuesday urging him to leave all options, including military action, on the table in the face of “our strategic enemy, the Iranian regime.”

The letter from Committee Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.) and subcommittee chairmen Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Pat Meehan (R-Pa.) urges Obama toward a “firm response” to “state-sponsored terror plots on American soil.”

Obama on Monday signed an executive order imposing new economic sanctions against any investment or provision of goods and services contributing to Iran’s oil-and-gas exploration efforts.

The congressmen wrote that current sanctions “have failed to effectively deter Iran’s actions and thwart Iranian intransigence.”

“Iran now seeks to expand its influence throughout the Western Hemisphere, most notably in Venezuela, and including the United States,” they wrote.

Last month, Iran was implicated in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

The assassination plot “indicates that Iran’s leaders feel emboldened by what they perceive as American weakness, and fear no negative consequences for their increasingly provocative actions,” the lawmakers wrote. “To prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and from further expansion of its terror operations, all options must be left on the table — including military action.”

The letter urges the administration to enforce sanctions against Iran’s central bank, expel Iranian and Hezbollah operatives from the United States, designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, conduct cyber and covert operations against the Iranian regime and continue to support democratic resistance movements in Iran.

“We believe it essential to send Iran a clear message: the US will not tolerate attempts to commit acts of terror in our Homeland,” the lawmakers wrote.

(Source: The Hill)