Trump tweets 'Iran never won a war' as Pelosi slams 'unauthorised' strike against Iran

A boy on a street in Tehran carries a portrait of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in the US airstrike in Iraq. Picture: Vahid Salemi/AP

A boy on a street in Tehran carries a portrait of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in the US airstrike in Iraq. Picture: Vahid Salemi/AP

Published Jan 3, 2020

Share

Moscow - US President Donald Trump broke his Twitter silence on Friday after the Pentagon killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani to say that Iran had never won a war.

"Iran never won a war, but never lost a negotiation!" he tweeted hours after posting a single picture of the US flag.

The general was killed in a strike on the Baghdad airport early on Friday, which was ordered by Trump in a tit-for-tat response to a siege of the US embassy in Iraq this week, which saw dozens of pro-Iranian protesters try to breach the mission​​​.

The US Department of Defense on Thursday night called the  drone strike "decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad", claiming that Soleimani "was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region".

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on Trump to immediately brief lawmakers on the strike, which has seen Iran threaten "serious retaliation". According to a statement issued by Pelosi, the airstrike was carried out without consulting Congress or obtaining "authorization for use of military force" against Iran.

"The full Congress must be immediately briefed on this serious situation and on the next steps under consideration by the Administration, including the significant escalation of the deployment of additional troops to the region," she said.

Meanwhile, Brett McGurk, who served as special envoy on the global coalition to defeat Islamic State under US Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, told NBC's Rachel Maddow that "We need to presume that we are now in a state of war with Iran". 

Sputnik and IOL

Related Topics: