A military operation to strike Iran in retaliation for the downing of a US drone was set to begin Thursday night when President Donald Trump called it off, a US official with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN.
The US military targets were a limited set of Iranian radars and missile batteries, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. No US weapons had been launched when the decision was made to call off the strikes, which were first reported by The New York Times.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump approved the operation before changing his mind or if he stopped short of giving final presidential approval and decided against proceeding further.
Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the National Security Council, declined to comment to CNN, saying the council doesn’t comment on military planning. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
The United States remains locked in a standoff with Iran, with US military or diplomatic responses having the potential to provoke further escalation from Tehran. Iran’s downing of the drone earlier Thursday has left the President caught between Republicans demanding a response and congressional Democrats warning that Trump – and the Iran policy hardliners on his national security staff, who welcome the confrontation – could lose control of the situation and lead the US into war.
Military and diplomatic officials were expecting a strike as late as 7 p.m. ET on Thursday after intense debate among Trump’s top national security officials and congressional leaders at the White House, multiple senior administration officials involved in or briefed on the deliberations told the Times. The strike had been scheduled for just before dawn on Friday in Iran to minimize the risk to civilians and the Iranian military, and military officials received word shortly after then that the strike was off, at least temporarily, the Times reported.
The reports drew swift reaction from Trump’s Democratic rivals.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts tweeted that “there is no justification” for escalating tensions with Iran.
“Donald Trump promised to bring our troops home. Instead he has pulled out of a deal that was working and instigated another unnecessary conflict,” she wrote. “There is no justification for further escalating this crisis – we need to step back from the brink of war.”
The strikes would have been Trump’s third military action against Middle East targets. He previously struck targets in Syria on two occasions.
Earlier Thursday, before the Times’ report, a senior White House official told CNN that Trump and national security adviser John Bolton were engaged in an ongoing debate about how to handle Iran.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, a CNN military analyst, told CNN’s Don Lemon Thursday on “CNN Tonight” that disagreement within the administration about whether to attack is not unusual for a White House.
“That’s something that occurs at any strategic decision level,” Hertling said, “when you’re mitigating risk or you’re attempting to understand what the risk might be based on the processes of war gaming and determining what your objectives are.”
Trump moved to ease tensions with Iran Thursday morning after Tehran downed a US drone near the Persian Gulf, CNN previously reported. He struck a starkly different tone on Iran from Bolton and other senior security aides.
