Pat Buchanan: Trump Must Choose - War President or Anti-Interventionist?

Patrick J. Buchanan
Jun. 25, 2019

Visualizing 150 Iranians dead from a missile strike that he had ordered, President Donald Trump recoiled and canceled the attack, a brave decision and defining moment for his presidency.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton, and Vice President Mike Pence had signed off on the strike on Iran as the right response to Tehran’s shootdown of a U.S. Global Hawk spy plane over the Gulf of Oman.

The U.S. claims that the drone was over international waters. Tehran says it was in Iranian territory. But while the loss of a $100 million drone is no small matter, no American pilot was aboard, and retaliating by killing 150 Iranians would appear to be a disproportionate response.

Good for Trump. Yet all weekend, he was berated for chickening out and imitating President Barack Obama. U.S. credibility, it was said, had taken a big hit and must be restored with military action.

By canceling the strike, the president also sent a message to Iran: we’re ready to negotiate. Yet given the irreconcilable character of our clashing demands, it is hard to see how the U.S. and Iran get off this road we are on, at the end of which a military collision seems almost certain.

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