Republican military hawks rallied to defend President Donald Trump for eliminating Iran Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani last weekend, as prominent Democrats universally condemned the president’s action.
Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley praised the president’s decision in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday night, noting that the attack left Iran “shaking in their boots.”
While Trump’s action was questioned by anti-interventionists like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Haley was one of many Republican hawks who favor a tougher approach to Iran and defended the president.
Haley mocked the Democrats for universally condemning Trump’s decision.
“You don’t see anyone standing up for Iran,” Haley said. “You’re not hearing any of the Gulf members, you’re not hearing China, you’re not hearing Russia. The only ones that are mourning the loss of Soleimani are Democrat leadership and our Democrat presidential candidates.”
Trump spent Tuesday morning retweeting eleven Twitter messages from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who praised the president’s action as a “major accomplishment.”
“We killed the most powerful man in Tehran short of the Ayatollah,” Graham wrote on Twitter. “This was not an act of revenge for what he had done in the past. This was a preemptive, defensive strike planned to take out the organizer of attacks yet to come.”
Trump also shared Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) message of support on Twitter.
“Future U.S. military action depends entirely on what Iran decides to do first,” Rubio wrote. “If they or their proxies attack or get ready to attack Americans, the U.S. must & will respond. If they don’t attack Americans, no U.S. attack will happen.”
The president also shared a message on Twitter featuring an article from former Gen. David Petraeus describing Trump’s decision as more significant than killing Osama bin Laden or Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a longtime proponent of a tougher approach to Iran, praised the president’s tough response to a series of escalating military attacks, which culminated in an series of attacks on the American military base in Iraq that resulted in the death of an American contractor.
“The president made it clear from the very beginning, that if Iran killed an American, they would pay severe consequences,” Cotton said in an interview on Monday. “That’s exactly what happened last week when he ordered the death of Qasem Soleimani.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) also rallied to defend Trump, needling former Obama aide Ben Rhodes and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on Twitter after they denounced Trump’s decision.
Cruz also proposed a Senate resolution praising Trump for the missile strike against Soleimani, imitating a similar Senate resolution in 2011 commending former President Obama for his decision to take out Osama bin Laden.
Top administration intelligence officials plan to brief members of Congress on Wednesday on the motives and rationale behind the president’s decision to launch the drone strike.
Trump emphasized Monday that he took action against Soleimani because he was a terrorist, noting that Obama and former President George W. Bush should have dealt with the threat earlier.
“This should have been done for the last 15 to 20 years, him in particular,” Trump said in an interview with conservative talk radio legend Rush Limbaugh. “He was their real military leader. He’s a terrorist.”