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2019-09-05 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
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'Act of war': Mattis says Obama's inept response to Cafe Milano bomb plot 'emboldened' Iran
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[Washington Examiner] Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says he predicted years ago that Iran would escalate its provocations against the United States ‐ and he partly blames the Obama administration’s anemic reaction to an Iranian plot to bomb a restaurant in Washington, D.C.
In his just-released book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, Mattis details his time as leader of U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013, overseeing military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia. "From my first day at CENTCOM, I knew we faced two principal adversaries: stateless Sunni Islamist terrorists and the revolutionary Shiite regime of Iran, the most destabilizing country in the region," he writes. "Iran was by far the more deadly of the two threats."
That’s not how the president under whom Mattis served saw it, though, and Barack Obama eventually fired the storied Marine general for what Mattis believes were his insistent warnings about the Iranian threat.
Mattis says Washington didn’t even inform him when Iran committed an "act of war" on American soil.
The duty officer at his Tampa, Florida, headquarters on Oct. 11, 2011 told him that the attorney general and FBI director had held a press conference to announce the arrest of two Iranians who had planned a bomb attack on Cafe Milano, a high-end restaurant in Washington that was a favorite of the rich and famous, including Saudi Arabia’s ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir.
As Mattis writes, "Attorney General Eric Holder said the bombing plot was ’directed and approved by elements of the Iranian government and, specifically, senior members of the Qods Force.’ The Qods were the Special Operations Force of the Revolutionary Guards, reporting to the top of the Iranian government."
Many pundits questioned the administration’s assessment that the Iranian government was involved in the plan. Despite Iran’s long history of overseas assassination plots, some observers were skeptical that the theocratic regime would attempt such an audacious attack.
Mattis is certain, however: "I saw the intelligence: we had recorded Tehran’s approval of the operation." 
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Posted by Besoeker 2019-09-05 01:34||
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Posted by Omusosing Scourge of the Faith4943 2019-09-05 02:23||
2019-09-05 02:23||
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Posted by ruprecht 2019-09-05 11:09||
2019-09-05 11:09||
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