Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been an advocate for an attack on Iran for a decade, the Washington Post noted in a Sunday report.
With Trump, however, Pompeo has only been pushing to kill Gen. Qasem Suleimani, a senior U.S. official told The Post.
"For more than a year, defense officials warned that the administration’s campaign of economic sanctions against Iran had increased tensions with Tehran requiring a bigger and bigger share of military resources in the Middle East when many at the Pentagon wanted to redeploy their firepower to East Asia," the report explained. "Trump, too, sought to draw down from the Middle East as he promised from the opening days of his presidential campaign. But that mind-set shifted on Dec. 27 when 30 rockets hit a joint U.S.-Iraqi base outside Kirkuk, killing an American civilian contractor and injuring service members."
That all changed when Pompeo, Sec. Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley went to Mar-a-Lago, where they outlined for Trump the attack on Iran.
"Trump’s decision to target Suleimani came as a surprise and a shock to some officials briefed on his decision, given the Pentagon’s long-standing concerns about escalation and the president’s aversion to using military force against Iran," The Post said.
"One significant factor was the 'lockstep' coordination for the operation between Pompeo and Esper, both graduates in the same class at the U.S. Military Academy, who deliberated ahead of the briefing with Trump," The Post cited senior U.S. officials.
Even Vice President Mike Pence supported the decision, though he didn't fly to Florida.
“Taking out Soleimani would not have happened under [former secretary of defense Jim] Mattis,” said one top administration official. The official also noted that under Gen. Jim Mattis, the Pentagon was against taking big risks. “Mattis was opposed to all of this. It’s not a hit on Mattis, it’s just his predisposition. Milley and Esper are different. Now you’ve got a cohesive national security team and you’ve got a secretary of state and defense secretary who’ve known each other their whole adult lives.”
Pompeo has become the voice of the administration on the attack, spending Sunday on news shows spinning the president's plan and disputing his plan to attack cultural sites against the 1954 Hague Convention that the U.S. signed in 2009.
"But critics inside and outside the administration have questioned Pompeo’s justification for the strike based on his claims that 'dozens if not hundreds' of American lives were at risk," said The Post.
Lawmakers were finally given a classified briefing Friday with intelligence officials. While Trump claimed there was an "imminent threat" from Iran, the intelligence wasn't the slam dunk Trump and his officials claimed. In reality, the threat posed by Suleimani had changed significantly.
When Pompeo was questioned about the so-called threat, he refused to answer.
“If you’re an American in the region, days and weeks — this is not something that’s relevant,” he told CNN's Jake Tapper.
"Some defense officials said Pompeo’s claims of an imminent and direct threat were overstated, and they would prefer that he make the case based on the killing of the American contractor and previous Iranian provocations," The Post reported.
The action combined with terrible international relationships mean Trump will go at it alone, and the international community will speculate the worst.
“No one trusts what Trump will do next, so it’s hard to get behind this,” said a European diplomat.
Pompeo has struck back at international allies during a Fox News appearance “the Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did — what the Americans did — saved lives in Europe as well,” he said.
