Elise Jordan, who served as a White House aide under President George W. Bush, is among the Bush-era Republicans who has often been highly critical of President Donald Trump. And when she appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, Jordan stressed that Trump’s policy on Iran could become a recipe for disaster.
Jordan addressed a report that Trump’s staff had reviewed a plan that was presented by Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and would deploy 120,000 troops to counter Iran. And the former White House Aide told “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, “I really cannot believe that we failed to learn anything from the first decade of this century, and we are actually considering escalating with Iran in a war that would further destabilize the region and unleash God knows what in terms of chaos in a very troubled region already.”
When the Bush Administration invaded Iraq in 2003, critics of the invasion — who ranged from Texas Rep. Ron Paul and Antiwar.com’s Justin Raimondo on the right to liberal talk show host Phil Donahue — warned that it could seriously destabilize the region. And many critics of the Iraq War believe that the invasion led to the rise of ISIS (Islamic State, Iraq and Syria).
President Donald Trump himself has been an outspoken critic of the Iraq invasion. But a major Bush-era neocon, John Bolton, joined the Trump Administration as national security advisor—and Bolton is known for being quite hawkish on Iran. During the Bush era, Bolton argued in favor of aggressive military action against the government in Tehran.
Last week, Bolton warned that any attack on the U.S. on Iran’s part would “be met with unrelenting force.”