In the wake of Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate top Iran general Qasem Soleimani, many Democrats criticized the move not out of some kind of misguided loyalty to a terrorist as the president’s allies would have people believe, but out of concern that it would ratchet up tensions with yet another country that most people really, really don’t want to go to war with. (They also remarked on that whole thing about notifying members of Congress, which the administration declined to do.) Yet while most Republicans were initially united in their praise of the escalation, last week several lawmakers broke ranks not only to condemn the situation, but to vote to restrict Trump’s authority on Iran. Why the change of heart? It might have something to do with the fact that it has become increasingly clear that the administration took creative license with the truth when it cited an “imminent” attack Soleimani was planning on Americans.
To recap, in attempting to justify the president’s decision to launch a drone strike with the intention of killing a top Iranian leader, members of the administration have insisted that an attack against Americans was basically moments away. “There is no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks that were being plotted by Qasem Soleimani,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last Thursday night on Fox News. “We don’t know precisely when, and we don’t know precisely where, but it was real.” Confronted by reporters during a press conference the next day re: the definition of “imminent,” Pompeo doubled down, insisting, “We had specific information on an imminent threat, and those threats included attacks on U.S. embassies. Period, full stop.” Asked how he defined the word, an exasperated Pomeo replied: “This was gonna happen. And American lives were at risk.” (Naturally, he failed to give an actual time frame.)
While some administrations, caught in what appears to be a lie, might decide to back down and salvage whatever shred of trust they could, that’s obviously not how Team Trump rolls. Back against the wall, the president decided on Friday to simply keep digging, telling Fox’s Laura Ingraham that he had information that Soleimani was planning new attacks on what “probably would’ve been four embassies.” At the time, an unnamed senior administration official and unnamed senior defense official told the Washington Post that not only were they unaware of threats against multiple embassies, “they were only aware of vague intelligence about a plot against the embassy in Baghdad and that the information did not suggest a fully formed plot.” But hey, people will say anything anonymously, right? Let’s see what the story is when someone’s name and face are attached: