On Sunday’s broadcast of CNN’s “State of the Union,” 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg said no one believes President Donald Trump thought through the consequences of killing Qasem Soleimani.
Buttigieg said, “I would not hesitate to use force if it is necessary to protect American lives, and the question is was it necessary and better than the alternative. It is not hard to believe that General Soleimani was in the middle of the campaign of violence. He was a walking campaign of violence, but when you are dealing with the Middle East, you to think about the next and the next and the next move. This is not checkers. I am not sure that any of us really believe that this president and the people around him, especially given that he has not even filled some of the key national security posts is really going through all of the consequences of what could happen next.”
He added, “As we speak, it looks like there is a suspension of anti-ISIS activities in Iraq and just to deal with the fallout here. We need answers on whether this is part of the meaningful strategy and what choices were offered to the president and while why he believed this is the best choice when we have not seen the indication that it is serving to prevent the attack they are talking about. To be clear, this is not a battlefield maneuver, because senior official being taken out and how did that prevent an attack and the alternatives are not better. We have not seen that.”
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