Tulsi Gabbard: War with Iran would make Afghanistan, Iraq wars 'look like a picnic'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The death of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani may mark the beginning of a Middle Eastern war that will make previous wars in the region look like "a picnic," 2020 presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, told Fox News Monday.
Appearing in an exclusive interview on "The Story," Gabbard slammed Trump for escalating tensions in the Middle East and questioned the "goal" of taking out Iran's top military commander.
"We've got to be clear-eyed about the situation that we are in," Gabbard said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}TULSI GABBARD RIPS SOLEIMANI STRIKE
"Speeding towards an all-out war with Iran will make the wars that we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic," she added. "It will be far more costly in American lives and American taxpayer dollars ... [and] all toward accomplishing what goal? What objective? I think that's really at the crux at this decision that President Trump made to take out Soleimani."
Regime officials in Tehran described the Baghdad airstrike that killed Soleimani as an “extremely provocative move” aimed at escalating tensions. Iranian officials said they reserved all rights “under international law to take necessary measures in this regard, in particular in exercising its inherent right to self-defense.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday warned that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for the U.S.
On Sunday, Iranian officials said the rogue nation no longer would abide by any of the limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The United States pulled out of the deal in 2018, a decision that had been met with disappointment by allies at the United Nations, where the deal was codified.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Gabbard blamed Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear agreement for catalyzing the rising tensions between Washington and Tehran, and accused the president of neglecting the "national security interests of Americans."
The 2020 candidate also responded to retaliatory threats from Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who said Sunday that U.S. soldiers in the Middle East would "return home in coffins."
"I think that this statement is further affirmation [that] this step that Trump took is a serious escalation of this war that further puts the American people and our troops in the region at risk," she said.
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"This is why I am calling for our troops to get out of Iraq and Syria now, because the longer that they stay there, the more likely it is that we will find ourselves entrenched into another endless quagmire of a war with no one able to define [the question of] what does winning look like ... what are we actually trying to accomplish and how does it actually serve the best interests of our people, of our safety and security?"