President Trump tweeted on Tuesday that any “attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force.”
Why it matters: It’s a new red line for Trump in the latest round of heightened tensions with Iran. The president previously called off a military strike in response to the downing of a U.S. drone, claiming the death toll would be disproportionate. His tweet on Tuesday strikes a markedly new tone.
View the complete June 25 article on the Axios website here.
DUBAI — Iranian officials slammed the Trump administration Tuesday for new sanctions targeting the country’s leadership, saying the measures permanently closed the path to diplomacy and that the White House had “become mentally crippled” under the current president.
In a searing televised address, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called restrictions against Iran’s supreme leader “outrageous and idiotic” and said they showed “certain failure” on the part of the Trump administration to isolate Iran.
“You call for negotiations. If you are telling the truth, why are you simultaneously seeking to sanction our foreign minister?” Rouhani said Tuesday, referring to remarks by U.S. officials suggesting plans to sanction Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif later this month.
President Trump told Hill.TV in an exclusive interview Monday that he does not need congressional approval to strike Iran.
When asked if he believes he has the authority to initiate military action against Iran without first going to Congress, Trump said, “I do.”
“But we’ve been keeping Congress abreast of what we’re doing … and I think it’s something they appreciate,” he said in an exclusive interview outside the Oval Office. “I do like keeping them abreast, but I don’t have to do it legally.”
View the complete June 24 article by Saagar Enjeti and Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.
Writing in the New York Times Monday, former national security adviser Susan Rice wondered how the U.S. came to the brink of war with Iran, after President Trump approved and then cancelled air strikes in the span of ten minutes.
“How on earth did we find ourselves 10 minutes from an idiotic war without the president having weighed the consequences?” Rice asks.
“As a former national security adviser who has participated in many decisions about whether and when to use force, I am more certain than ever that our national security decision-making process is dangerously dysfunctional,” she adds.
View the complete June 24 article by Tana Ganeva from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.
President Trump on Monday announced additional U.S. sanctions against Iran targeting the country’s supreme leader and other high-ranking officials.
Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office that he said will deny the supreme leader and others access to financial instruments. Trump had previously signaled he would levy additional sanctions on Iran amid simmering tensions between Washington and Tehran.
“The supreme leader of Iran is one who ultimately is responsible for the hostile conduct of the regime,” Trump said. “He’s respected within his country. His office oversees the regime’s most brutal instruments.”
View the complete June 24 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.
Days after a U.N. expert called for further investigation of Saudi Arabian officials’ involvement in the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump declined to say whether he would hold the country’s leaders responsible and asserted that it was in the United States’ best interest to “take their money.”
In a Sunday interview on “Meet the Press,” Trump revealed that he recently had “a great conversation” with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in which he did not raise the issue of the U.N. report or Khashoggi’s killing in October.
“I think it’s been heavily investigated,” Trump said, when host Chuck Todd asked whether he would order the FBI to investigate, as the United Nations has recommended. “I’ve seen so many different reports.”
View the complete June 23 article by Kayla Epstein on The Washington Post website here.
It’s a strange thing for leftist doves to find themselves on the same side of an issue as Tucker Carlson. The right-wing Fox News anchor known for his unabashed white nationalism was among the skeptics who privately urged President Trump not to launch a military strike against Iran last week. After Iranian authorities downed a U.S. surveillance drone above the Strait of Hormuz, the White House plotted retaliatory action. Key figures in the administration — chiefly, national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — were reportedly keen on hitting back. A plan of attack was put into place.
Donald J. Trump
✔
· Jun 21, 2019
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
….Death to America. I terminated deal, which was not even ratified by Congress, and imposed strong sanctions. They are a much weakened nation today than at the beginning of my Presidency, when they were causing major problems throughout the Middle East. Now they are Bust!….
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
….On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not….
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But on Friday, Trump took to social media and congratulated himself on reining back a U.S. military that was “cocked and loaded” to strike at Iranian targets. Carlson’s thinking — that Trump’s nationalist base is uninterested in, if not wholly opposed to, costly military entanglements abroad — appeared to be on the president’s mind. He suggested the more effective approach would be for the United States to maintain its current pressure campaign on Iran, including slapping on more economic sanctions Monday. (The United States did carry out cyberattacks on Iranian systems last week.)
View the complete June 24 article by Ishaan Tharoor on The Washington Post website here.
President Donald Trump’s story about his decision to cancel planned airstrikes on Iran is not adding up.
Observers have noted Trump’s claim to have stopped the airstrikes as the clock was ticking down — on Twitter he said there were just ten minutes left for him to make a decision — and that only then did he realize that there would be approximately 150 casualties from the strike. This, he said, would be a disproportionate response to Iran’s downing of an unmanned drone.
As Fox News’ Shep Smith noted, “Something is wrong here.” The network’s reporting suggested that Trump should already have been aware of the possible casualties, as common sense would suggest, far earlier than ten minutes before the launch. National security lawyer Bradley Moss argued that, if true, Trump’s account shows a “total breakdown in process.”
View the complete June 21 article by Cody Fenwick from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.
President Trump stepped away from the precipice of an immediate military conflict with Iran on Friday, calling off a strike in response to Iran’s downing of a U.S. surveillance drone.
But with the United States and Iran still locked in an adversarial pose, with none of their underlying grievances resolved, the prospect for fresh brinkmanship loomed as U.S. officials contemplated an alternative response.
Key Trump allies on Capitol Hill said Friday that they expected the president to order a “non-kinetic” measure, suggesting economic sanctions or some other nonmilitary punishment for Iran’s destroying the aircraft.
Trump was told strikes against Iran would kill 150, which seemed a “not proportionate” response for the downing of an unmanned drone.In a series of tweets on Friday morning, President Donald Trump casually mentioned that he had ordered air strikes on Iran, but that he called them off 10 minutes prior to execution.
“We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die,” he wrote. “150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”
He went on to write that the U.S. military is “ready to go” and “Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons.”
