Top Mideast commander briefs Trump on military options on Iran – ABC

Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, who oversees troops in the Middle East as head of U.S. Central Command, briefed President Donald Trump on Thursday on potential military options in Iran, according to a person close to the president.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the president’s top military adviser, also was present, according to a second person familiar with the discussion.

The briefing by the top military commander in the region comes on the same day as U.S. and Iranian officials held indirect talks in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program.

Political analysts said that suggestions of Israel throwing the first “punch” is likely intended to serve as a kind of political cover to Republicans in Congress facing a tough election year. Trump campaigned on the promise that he would end wars, not start them.

If Israel struck Iran, defense officials predict Iran would almost certainly retaliate. Trump could then argue that U.S. intervention in the conflict was in line with decades-long policy of defending Israel, analysts say.

Regardless of how it begins, “if it becomes an involved campaign and we take casualties, then you get some political risks,” analysts say.

“I think it’s important for President Trump to articulate the strategy and mission in Iran,” he later added. “But before that, he has to have a clear strategy and mission, and I don’t know that he has settled on that yet.”

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