Trump proposed deadly strike on top Iranian military figure, book says

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

44% : However, month or so later, on 20 August, Esper says Milley told him O'Brien had called the evening before, to say "the president wanted to strike a senior military officer who was operating outside of Iran".
39% : Among other such ideas which were discussed, Esper says, were sending "missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs"; sending 250,000 troops to the southern border; and dipping the decapitated head of a terrorist leader in pig's blood as a warning to other Islamist militants.
39% : He also says the O'Brien call to Milley in late August was "the last time something involving Iran seriously came up before the election".
38% : Trump made belligerence towards Tehran a key part of his administration and platform for re-election, pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and regularly warning in bombastic terms of the cost of conflict with the US.
37% : "There was no way I was going to unilaterally take such an action," he writes, "particularly one fraught with a range of legal, diplomatic, political and military implications, not to mention that it could plunge us into war with Iran."
26% : At a meeting in July 2020, Esper writes, O'Brien pushed for military action against Iran over its uranium enrichment - work that accelerated after Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal.
24% : How come folks in the White House didn't see this?"Fears that Trump might provoke war with Iran persisted throughout his presidency, stoked by reports of machinations among hawks on his staff.
12% : In September 2020, Trump tweeted: ""Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!"

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