Key administration officials and Trump surrogates struck back at critics of the president that he was all talk, no action when it came to countering Iran’s recent bellicose moves, warning that his restraint doesn’t signal an unwillingness to act.
“Do not confuse restraint for weakness,” said one official, pointing to the surprise U.S. missile strike Thursday in Baghdad that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
“This was a long time coming,” added another official.
Leading up to the strike, critics in politics and especially the media ripped Trump for not following through on his threats to Iran, especially after Iranian supporters charged the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.
“Our adversaries are calling his bluffs and taking advantage,” Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin wrote hours before the secret attack against Soleimani. “Many will say Trump is more risk-averse now because he’s headed into an election and needs a strong economy and relative peace,” added the well-read columnist.
One official said the president and his foreign policy team have never expected to get a fair shake in the media, but appeared to be snickering at the pre-attack criticisms that the White House was wimpy.
“We can never win in the press,” said one official who shrugged off the attacks.
Politically, the attack showed that Trump would pull the trigger when needed, and it sets him up to look stronger going into the 2020 reelection, GOP communications adviser Ron Bonjean said.
“The president has laid a very strong foundation to show he is unpredictable when it comes to foreign policy, and it is wise to not think he is all bark and no bite,” said Bonjean, who handled the communications campaign when Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
Bonjean also said it would lead to a GOP rally around the president and the flag and change the conversation in Washington from impeachment to foreign policy.
“This changes the talk in Washington from Democrats impeaching the president based on their view of his leadership to a debate over the president’s strong-willed foreign policy,” added Bonjean, who maintains strong ties to House and Senate GOP leadership and the White House.
Meanwhile, State and White House officials made the case that Soleimani should have been killed years ago and that only Trump was willing to do it.
They said Soleimani was responsible for “millions” of deaths linked to his planning of thousands of attacks dating back to the Reagan administration and the Beirut bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks on Oct. 23, 1983.
As head of Iran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, Soleimani had “planned and conducted terrorist attacks across six continents and inside the United States,” the administration said.
It added that Soleimani had been traveling in the Middle East, coordinating further “imminent large-scale attacks against U.S. diplomats and service members.” And, it added, he had “dramatically escalated Iran’s campaign of violence and terrorism against Americans and American interests” in the Middle East, including a rocket attack on Dec. 27 that killed an American citizen and wounded four American service members.
“You have to take this seriously, and we did,” said an official.
