Mattis says Obama failed to respond to Iran's attempted mass murder attack in Washington DC

PJ Media:

After the surprise resignation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis last December, Democrats were quick to politicize the news, and have certainly been hoping ever since that Mattis would provide them with new information they could use to attack Donald Trump. He does have a memoir coming out, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, but it looks like it’s Barack Obama and Joe Biden who get the bulk of the criticism.

Prior be being Secretary of Defense under Trump, Mattis served as commander of U.S. Central Command under Obama and Biden. Mattis had predicted that Iran would continue to provoke the United States. Mattis’s warning went ignored, and when Iran committed an act of war on American soil, he was not told about it, and the United States never responded to it.

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.”

Mattis writes, “Had the bomb gone off, those in the restaurant and on the street would have been ripped apart, blood rushing down sewer drains. It would have been the worst attack on us since 9/11. I sensed that only Iran’s impression of America’s impotence could have led them to risk such an act within a couple of miles of the White House, Absent one fundamental mistake — the terrorists had engaged an undercover DEA agent in an attempt to smuggle the bomb — the Iranians would have pulled off this devastating attack. Had that bomb exploded, it would have changed history.”

In response to the plot, Mattis believed a forceful reaction was necessary. “I believed we had to respond forcefully. My military options would raise the cost for this attack beyond anything the mullahs and the Qods generals could pay.” But, Obama wasn’t interested. “We treated an act of war as a law enforcement violation, jailing the low-level courier.”

Why didn’t Obama want a forceful response to the act of war by Iran? His secret nuclear deal.
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This is in addition to Mattis's criticism of Obama and Biden for their strategic blunder in retreating from Iraq which allowed ISIS to capture territory and commit genocide against the population that did not accept their weird religious beliefs.  But that Obama was willing to ignore an attempted mass murder attack on American soil along with his stopping a federal investigation of Hezballahs dope business is just more evidence of how craven his deal with Iran was.  It was never in Americans interest to do the deal.