On February 28, US and Israel launched ‘Operation Epic Fury’ with airstrikes on key targets in Iran in west Asia. The strikes targeted senior Iranian leadership including Ayatollah Khamenei, and several important military facilities.
The campaign was supposedly launched to neutralize Iran’s missile capabilities, stop them from developing Nuclear weapons, and to bring about a regime change. 4 weeks into the operation, all US-led forces have achieved is managing to replace one Ayatollah Khamenei with another Ayatollah Khamenei. They have also achieved global supply chain chaos and worldwide energy crisis.
Now, with no end to the war in sight, no major success, and no exit ramp available, US President Trump seems to be looking for a way to put the responsibility of starting the war on others’ shoulders.
Secretary of Defense, or as the post has become in Trump administration- Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth seems to be the one selected by Trump to take the blame for the war.
Trump said at a Memphis Safe Task Force roundtable in Tennessee while sitting beside the Pentagon chief, “I called Pete, I called General [Dan] Caine. I called a lot of our great people… And I said, ‘Let’s talk. We got a problem in the Middle East. We have a country, known as Iran, that for 47 years has been just a purveyor of terror, and they’re very close to having a nuclear weapon. We can keep going and get that 50,000 up to 55 and 60, there’s no end, or we can take a stop and make a little journey into the Middle East and eliminate a big problem.”
Addressing Hegseth, Trump further said, “And Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up, and you said, ‘Let’s do it, because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon'”.
With the war not going so well in West Asia, America’s Gulf allies suffering severe loss of key infrastructure, particularly Qatar, looks like Donald Trump doesn’t want to be seen as the man who backed the war right from the start.
Trump openly saying Hegseth was the first one to suggest taking the option of a military operation seems to be a ploy to divert at least part of the blame towards the Pentagon Chief.
