On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN International’s “The Brief,” Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) argued that President Donald Trump “really has no place he can go other than what would only be a humiliating, complete withdrawal” from Iran. He also stated that the only way to annihilate the country would be a total war or nuclear weapons.
Host Jim Sciutto asked, “[D]o you see a President who might ratchet up military attacks again, or really wants to get to talks?”
Quigley answered, “Look, he’s clearly frustrated, but he brought this upon himself. He’s vacillated between negotiations and escalating the war again. And he’s clearly desperate and frustrated, and he has no place to go. The regime is clearly still in place. They still have the remnants of a nuclear program. That part hasn’t changed. The expenditures are devastating for the U.S. economy, the loss of human life, U.S. soldiers, and he really has no place he can go other than what would only be a humiliating, complete withdrawal.”
Quigley continued, “And he talks about annihilation, first of all, when this President says he might do something, I think when a tyrant tells you he might do something, you better listen. I think he’s capable of anything. But if he’s talking about annihilating Iran, there [are] really only two things there, and that is all-out war, which is against a, what? 1.5 million-man army in Iran, a war that would take all of our Army to conduct, or something more dramatic. It’s his words, not mine. He’s talking about annihilating them. There [are] only a couple of ways to do that, and, obviously, one of them would be nuclear.”
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