US Official: Trump Refused Pentagon’s Decades-Long Push to Attack Iran

By Staff, Agencies

Former US President Donald Trump had been resisting his advisors’ push in Washington and the Pentagon to launch an attack against Iran, a senior US State Department official has said, after a newly emerged tape recording revealed new facts about the American conspiracy.

The development came after the tape recording, which is two minutes long and is related to a 2021 Trump interview, revealed the former president seemingly showed classified documents and spoke about “highly confidential, secret” US government papers to an unauthorized group consisting of an author, a publisher, and two staff members.

In the file, Trump can seemingly be heard referencing top secret plans regarding an attack against Iran that he says were prepared by Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has become a sharp critic of Trump after the former president's term ended.

“These are the papers,” Trump is heard saying. "This was done by the military and given to me."

Speaking to Russia's Sputnik news agency, Larry Johnson, a retired CIA intelligence officer and US State Department official said the audio file, which was published by US media on Monday, proved that Trump had been refusing the decades-long idea of attacking Iran pushed by the hawkish neocons.

“He resisted the pressure from advisors who wanted to start a war with Iran, but he refused. He refused to go along with them. And that's I think that's really part of the anger directed at him as well,” Johnson said.

Trump's administration was by no means the first one to be briefed by the Pentagon on an attack against Iran, Johnson said, adding that the focus on the war plans conceals a greater truth: that Trump didn’t want to launch such an attack.

“The war plans against Iran have existed since 1980 ... and have been revised and updated over time. So I wouldn't read too much into his discussing one plan,” Johnson noted.

“I think the key point is that Trump did not act on these plans,” Johnson said, downplaying the importance of the files as an indicator of Trump's illegal possessions.

Milley is among the top American individuals Tehran blacklisted over their involvement in the US assassination of top Iranian counter-terrorism commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and several others.

The US military launched an air strike under Trump’s order targeting General Soleimani near Baghdad International Airport shortly after his arrival with several of his companions on January 3, 2020.

One of the general’s companions killed in the attack was the deputy-Commander of the Popular Mobilization Units [PMU] of Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.