Tag: Trump assassination of Iranian leader

Trump says ‘it doesn’t really matter’ if Iranian general posed an imminent threat

Washington Post logoPresident Trump added to the controversy over his administration’s justification for the killing of an Iranian general, saying Monday that “it doesn’t really matter” whether it was in response to an imminent threat to the United States.

In a tweet, Trump criticized Democrats for trying to determine whether Iranian attacks the administration has said were planned by Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani against U.S. targets were imminent.

“It doesn’t really matter because of his horrible past,” Trump wrote. The administration has held Soleimani, as head of Iran’s Quds Force, responsible for orchestrating Iran’s use of proxy forces in terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East, and the deaths of hundreds of U.S. soldiers over the years, long before the threat it has said justified the Jan. 3 U.S. drone strike that killed him. Continue reading.

Trump says it doesn’t matter if Soleimani posed an imminent threat

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Monday said it didn’t matter if Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani posed an imminent threat to the United States because of his “horrible past.”

Trump also asserted that his national security team agreed on the imminent threat posed by Soleimani that led to the decision to kill him. He made this assertion despite remarks from Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Sunday that undercut Trump’s claim that the Iranian general was planning to target four American embassies before a U.S. drone strike killed him in Baghdad on Jan. 3.

“The Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners are working hard to determine whether or not the future attack by terrorist Soleimani was ‘eminent’ or not, & was my team in agreement,” Trump tweeted Monday morning, incorrectly spelling imminent. Continue reading.

GOP Minority Leader Says Trump Can Kill ‘Bad People’

As President Donald Trump’s violent conflict with Iran became the focal point of Washington debate, Republicans returned to their default attack line in partisan foreign policy debates: calling Democratic critics terrorist sympathizers.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) used this smear on Thursday during a press conference, and then he took his defense of Trump’s actions to an even disturbing level. He directly called out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comments about the president’s killing of Iranian military leader Qassim Suleimani, which was widely viewed as an extremely provocative action.

“We have no illusions about Iran, no illusions about Soleimani, who was a terrible person,” Pelosi said. “But it’s not about how bad they are, it’s about how good we are, protecting the people in a way that prevents war and will not have us producing again and again generations of veterans who are suffering.” Continue reading.