WASHINGTON — President Biden said Tuesday that he has decided how to respond after three US troops were killed in a weekend drone attack on an outpost in Jordan — but hastened to add that he does not want to expand the conflict in the Middle East.

Biden, 81, told reporters as he left the White House for a fundraising swing through South Florida that “yes” he had determined the US answer to the Sunday attack, which an Iran-backed militant group is suspected of committing.

“I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for,” the president added.

Asked whether he holds Iran responsible for the soldiers’ deaths, Biden said, “I do hold them responsible in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”

Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, were killed and more than 40 US troops were wounded in the attack on the remote outpost near the Syrian border.

Biden had come under intense pressure from Republicans on Capitol Hill to take a harder stance against Tehran after the disaster.

“Biden and his mouthpieces say we must be ‘proportionate’ and ‘measured’ when responding to Iran killing U.S. troops. But that’s conveying weakness. It’s telling Iran that it is acceptable to kill Americans,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said on X Tuesday. “Our response should be overwhelming force to deter these attacks.”

“Three years of Joe Biden’s policy of weakness & appeasement,” groused House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik. “America needs President Trump’s peace through strength back.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) lashed out at what he called Biden’s “policy of appeasement.”

“He allowed billions of dollars to flow to Iran to murder Americans & attack Israel,” Cruz said. “At the same time, Biden officials are talking about cutting off military aid to Israel. He helps enemies of America & abandons our friends.”

On Monday, noted Iran hawk Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said: “The best response the Biden Administration could have to Iran’s BS denial of involvement in the attack that killed and wounded U.S. [sic] service members is to target Iranian oil or IRGC military infrastructure valuable to the regime.

“Anything less will be seen as weakness and will put more Americans in harm’s way,” Graham added. “The President has all the authority he needs to act. He must act now.”

White House spokesman Andrew Bates accused Republicans over the weekend of politicizing the tragedy.

“Attempts by far-right congressional Republicans to politicize our national security are illogical and detrimental to our safety and security,” he said in a Sunday statement. “In fact, these Republican officials never criticized the previous administration when the same militias attacked American troops, including in 2020.”

The attack was the latest in a series of anti-American operations by Iran proxy groups in Iraq, Syria and off Yemen’s coast following the Oct. 7 terror assault by Hamas targeting Israel.

Iran-backed Hamas slaughtered about 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7 and took more than 200 hostages to the Gaza Strip, triggering a declaration of war by Israel as well as large protests against the Jewish state across the world.

Biden earlier this month ordered US strikes on sites in Yemen used by the Iran-allied Houthi group, which has governed most of the country since 2014, in response to attacks on international commercial shipping.

Additional attacks have targeted US troops who have remained stationed in Iraq and Syria after helping turn back the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists who overran much of those countries during the Obama administration.

Since Oct. 17, there have been “approximately 165 attacks — 66 in Iraq, 98 in Syria and of course, the one yesterday in Jordan,” Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Monday, adding that in addition to the three fatalities approximately 80 US personnel have received non-life-threatening injuries.

Meanwhile, as of Tuesday, the Defense Department said the Houthis have attacked or threatened international and commercial shipping three dozen times since Nov. 19.

Late Tuesday, Iraq-based Kataib Hezbollah announced that it was suspending its military operations against US forces in the wake of the Jordan drone strike, saying: “We will continue to defend our people in Gaza in other ways, and we recommend to the brave Mujahideen of the Free Hezbollah Brigades to passive defense (temporarily), if any American action occurs.”

“I don’t have a specific comment to provide,” a Pentagon spokesperson responded, “other than actions speak louder than words.”

With reporting by Caitlin Doornbos