US president Donald Trump has sidelined the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the director of the National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, from high-level discussions on the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict after they rejected Israeli claims regarding Iran making nuclear bombs in underground facilities.
Reports suggest that Gabbard's sidelining comes amid her debunking of Israeli false intelligence reports on the Iranian nuclear program, which suggested that Tehran was just a few days from acquiring nukes.
Hegseth has also been edged out of operational discussions, with the Washington Post reporting that two four-star generals overseeing the deployment of additional US military assets in the Middle East have taken the lead.
The inconsistent Donald Trump is once again in the spotlight, as he said that he does not care about her intelligence chief's findings on the Israeli false reports.
Reports indicate that since he has bypassed the secondary level of diplomats, Trump now relies solely on the more experienced and tier one advisory group comprising anti-war Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Joint Chiefs Vice Chair General Dan Caine.
Trump's bypassing traditional civilian defence and intelligence leadership has raised alarm bells over his next move, as he has already created much chaos in the international community on several issues, including a trade war, threatening the NATO bloc, sanctioning Russia, pushing Ukraine, sidelining India for Pakistan and a tariff war with China.
Israel launched a large-scale bombing campaign against Iran last week, claiming Tehran was close to producing a nuclear weapon. Trump will decide whether to join the Israeli campaign “within the next two weeks”, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday.
A former Democratic congresswoman and Iraq War veteran, Gabbard has long been critical of the US intelligence community, which she now oversees, and she was known for supporting NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Her release of a video warning about the horrors of nuclear war following a visit to Hiroshima reportedly annoyed Trump’s advisers.
Her absence from a key June 8 meeting at Camp David on Iran policy has fuelled speculation about her diminished influence, with multiple sources indicating that the Trump administration is intentionally sidelining her from the war-related discussion since she has opposed the move.
Follow us
