Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg criticized President Donald Trump for his decision to authorize the strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
In an appearance on MSNBCâs âMorning Joe,â Buttigieg said one of the lessons learned from the ongoing wars in the Middle East is that âtaking out a bad guy is not necessarily a good idea.â
âThere is no question that Soleimani had American blood on his hands and that he was a bad actor in the region. But if there is anything that we have learned in the last 20 years about the Middle East, itâs that taking out a bad guy is not necessarily a good idea.â
Watch his comments below:
He continued to question how much the administration had thought about the potential fallout from the strike.
âWhat weâve seen here is no evidence that thereâs been proper consultation with Congress. And more importantly and more dangerously, no evidence that theyâve really thought about the consequences.â
âAlready certain things are happening, including the fact that itâs less likely that Iranâs nuclear ambitions can be controlled,â he added.
âWe have a suspension in our counter-ISIS operations, and evidence that we are moving towards a scenario where weâll be expelled from Iraq. So if they were thinking about this in terms of the 3-D chess that it is, and not checkers, weâve not seen evidence of why they felt that this was the only or best decision.â
In response to the strike, which occurred without authorization from Congress, the House is expected to pass a resolution designed to âlimit the Presidentâs military actions regarding Iran,â as IJR has previously reported.
While Congress has decried the decision to carry out the strike without getting authorization from Congress, former Homeland Security Secretary under the Obama administration Jeh Johnsonsaid Trump was within his Constitutional authority.
