CNN anchor Jake Tapper questioned President Donald Trump's ultimate game plan in Iran, calling out the president and his administration for mixed messaging.
Tapper was responding to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's claims about objectives in the war and what the United States had aimed to achieve in its military strikes that first launched on Feb. 28. Now weeks into the war, Americans were unsure what the actual objectives were following confusing communications over what prompted the military action in the Middle East.
"If the mission is just as Secretary Rubio noted, the destruction of the air force and the navy and missiles and missile-making capability, it would seem that the U.S. would be close to accomplishing that," Tapper said. "Butaccording to reports in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, the Trumpadministration is preparing formore. The Pentagon is preparingfor weeks of ground operationsin Iran, troops on the ground. President Trump is weighingdeploying another 10,000 moreground troops to the Middle Eastregion in general. And they arealso considering a complexoperation to extract with bootson the ground."
Trump hasn't made clear what his next decision will be — and that has left Americans confused, Tapper explained.
"Again, one can want adenuclearized and democratic Iran and still wonder if President Trump is kind ofmaking some of this up as hegoes along," Tapper said. "One can support President Trump and wonder ifhe's fully aware of how oftenwars spiral out of controllittle by little, withunanticipated responses by theenemy requiring increasingcommitment."
"President Trump saidhe would end the Iran war whenhe, 'feels it in hisbones,' when so many lives are onthe line. That is a remarkablyvague and impulsive metric... Some people believe Trump's constant back and forth is street strategic, four-dimensional chess," Tapper added.