Another anti-war message from Tulsi Gabbard surfaces as DNI emerges to defend Iran conflict | EUROtoday
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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has once more been haunted by her previous opposition to U.S. intervention in Iran as she emerges from the woodwork to defend President Donald Trump’s present battle.
A resurfaced tweet posted by Gabbard on May 16, 2019, when she was a Hawaii Democratic congresswoman operating to be that social gathering’s presidential nominee, finds her attacking Trump for sabre-rattling towards Tehran throughout his first time period.
“Trump promised to get the U.S. out of ‘stupid wars,’” she wrote. “But now he and [then-national security adviser] John Bolton are on the brink of launching us into a very stupid and costly war with Iran. Join me in sending a strong message to President Trump: The U.S. must NOT go to war with Iran.”
Earlier this month, a Fox News interview with Gabbard courting from January 2020 additionally re-emerged, by which the she rebuked Trump over the assassination of Quds commander Qasem Soleimani, saying: “Speeding towards an all-out war with Iran would make the wars that we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic.
“It will be far more costly in American lives and American taxpayer dollars, and all towards accomplishing what goal? What objective?”
The DNI, a veteran who has made retaining the U.S. out of overseas navy commitments a cornerstone of her political model, will probably be anticipated to defend Trump’s adventurism when she seems earlier than the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday.
Gabbard can anticipate to be requested concerning the president’s U-turn on his 2024 election pledge to begin no extra “forever wars” and whether or not she feels betrayed by current developments.
Gabbard endorsed Trump’s overseas coverage message and characterised his predecessor Joe Biden as a “warmonger.”
Her look comes a day after Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, introduced his resignation in an open letter to Trump.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
“I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards,” the letter learn partially.
Gabbard responded to Kent’s bombshell resolution Tuesday with a cautiously-worded X submit by which she didn’t point out him by title or enterprise an opinion on his causes for stepping down.
“Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our president and commander-in-chief,” she wrote.
“As our commander-in-chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat, and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people and our country.
“After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion.”
Trump himself dismissed Kent as a “nice guy” who was “weak on security” whereas White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated his letter contained “many false claims” and insisted the president had “had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.”
Looking forward to Gabbard’s congressional look, Justin Logan of the Cato Institute think-tank instructed NBC News: “We haven’t seen much of Gabbard since Trump attacked Iran, so this will be high stakes for her.
“People like Gabbard have a tough needle to thread: defend the administration without looking like a forelock-tugging flunky who’s thrown her principles into the wind.”
This will not be the primary time the DNI has been positioned in an ungainly spot by Trump’s impulsive overseas coverage calls – and drawn his ire.
Last yr, simply previous to the Operation Midnight Hammer strikes on Iran’s nuclear amenities, it was identified to the president by a journalist that Gabbard had instructed Congress she didn’t imagine Tehran was near constructing a bomb, to which Trump responded: “I don’t care what she said.”
He was additionally reportedly incensed when she posted a three-minute video on X warning that “political elite and warmongers” are “carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers,” inserting the world “on the brink of nuclear annihilation.”
Gabbard minimize a distant determine in January when the U.S. swooped in to take away Nicolas Maduro from energy in Venezuela, one other intervention she had publicly opposed previously, posting pictures of herself doing yoga on the seashore relatively than taking her place among the many resolution makers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tulsi-gabbard-iran-senate-intelligence-committee-b2940787.html