Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) said Monday night on Fox News that President Trump’s decision to order an airstrike killing Iran’s top military commander undermined U.S. national security.
Gabbard argued that Trump had undermined security by ensuring that Iran would stop following the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 and by complicating the effort to fight ISIS in Iraq.
“There’s two main points here of how he has undermined our national security,” the 2020 presidential hopeful told Martha McCallum of Fox News.
Gabbard, a veteran of the Iraq War who has criticized political figures in both parties for getting the U.S. involved in foreign wars, said Trump was wrong to pull the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal and noted that Iran has now said it will not abide by any restrictions in that deal following the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force.
Gabbard said U.S. forces in Iraq will now be too focused on Iran, “allowing ISIS and al Qaeda to create and mount a resurgence that further puts us and our national security at risk.”
Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have been at a boiling point since the strike killing Soleimani, for which Iran has promised revenge.