President Donald Trump’s desire to look tough pushed the US and Iran to the brink of war and placed US service members in danger, top experts and former US officials say.
Early on January 3 Iraqi time, Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, widely considered the second most important figure in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Soleimani strike raised fears of a new war in the Middle East and was the most stunning use of a decapitation strike of a senior foreign military leader by the US military since World War II. It sparked the only direct attack on US forces or allies that Iran has openly claimed since the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979.
“For Trump, everything is political — even this profoundly dangerous escalation,” Ned Price, a former National Security Council official under the Obama administration, explained that;
It’s an election year and Trump, a former reality TV star who’s perpetually conscious of his public image, has already sought to use the deadly strike to raise money for his 2020 reelection campaign via Facebook ads, emails, and text messages. “ANOTHER dead terrorist,” the subject line of one such email to supporters said, per ABC News.
“This operation wasn’t a strategic or even a tactical maneuver; it was in large part a political act disguised as a military operation,” Price said. “That’s why it’s not at all surprising that the Trump campaign has fundraised off the strike.”
Echoing this perception, Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told Insider, “Trump is a unique president insofar as he only does politics, and never policy … He strikes me as someone who makes decisions based entirely on how he thinks something is going to look to his base on a 12-hour news cycle, if not less. So it’s all, always politics, to the exclusion of policy altogether.”
Less than 24 hours after Soleimani was killed, Trump was touting the drone strike at an “Evangelicals for Trump” rally in Florida.
“Qassem Soleimani has been killed and his bloody rampage is now forever gone,” Trump said to an audience at a Miami megachurch.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently not been impressed with Trump’s handling of this, telling CNN on Friday that Trump has been “reckless” and “impulsive.”
Kerry added that Trump “likes to think it makes him look tough,” but said his approach to Iran has actually shut the door to any chance at diplomacy.
‘Despite the attack on Soleimani, he likely would prefer to avoid escalation that led to a general war’
After a week of tensions and threats following the strike, the US and Iran backed off from entering a wider conflict.
“To the people and leaders of Iran: We want you to have a future and a great future — one that you deserve, one of prosperity at home, and harmony with the nations of the world,” Trump said in a speech on Thursday. “The United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.”
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