General Dan Kaine and Donald Trump
Larry Johnson, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst, claimed that US President Donald Trump considered using the nuclear option against Iran, but backed off after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Keane responded “no.”
““Trump was seriously entertaining and asking about the use of nuclear weapons. To his credit, General Keane said: ‘Absolutely not’ – very firmly. So there was a discussion about the use of nuclear weapons,” Johnson told ANI.
He also claimed that after Kaine objected, Trump publicly stated that nuclear weapons would not be used.“It (the nuclear proposal) was rejected by General Keane, which is why Donald Trump later came out and admitted in the meeting, ‘No, no, no, we will never use a nuclear weapon,'” he added.
good. That was taken off the table… Later, we got confirmation that the issue of using nuclear weapons had been raised. “It was discussed and General Kane dropped it.”In explaining the chain of command, Johnson noted that Trump, as commander in chief, could have ordered the use of nuclear weapons, and that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is not a formal part of the operational chain of command.“It’s not so much veto power as it is the role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
By law, he (Kane) is the president’s chief military advisor. “Now, the chain of command for using nuclear weapons is such that if Trump orders it, he would then go to the general in charge of what is called STRATCOM,” the former CIA analyst explained. “He (Trump) will go through the Secretary of Defense, or Secretary of War (Pete Hegseth) now, and then from the Secretary of War to the general who leads Strategic Command.
The strategic leadership will be responsible for implementing this.”However, Johnson said such a decision could have prompted Keane to resign in protest if his advice had been ignored.“And you know, the implication in that is that if Trump actually tries to move forward or something like that, you could see potential resignations of Chairman Keane. All you have to do is say, no, that’s out of bounds. It’s unacceptable. It’s an actual military consideration. And General Keane was not expressing a political point of view,” he added.Trump’s “Social Truth” post on April 7 raised concerns that the United States might resort to nuclear action against Iran.“An entire civilization will die tonight, never to come back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it will probably happen,” the Republican leader wrote on his social media platform.However, a ceasefire was declared the next day, which remains in place. The Middle East War began with joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.The United States remains the only country that has used nuclear weapons in wars, as it dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II in August 1945.
