Ex- US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday said that President Donald Trump was bringing the US “dangerously close” to starting a war with Iran.
Biden said that Trump’s authorization of killing Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani on January 3, an abrupt move made without consultation with the US Congress and allies, has exacerbated tensions in the Middle East.
“If there was an imminent threat that required this extraordinary action, then we are owed an explanation, and the facts to back it up,” he said.
Instead of solving a crisis, Soleimani’s killing has contributed to an “outcome of strategic setbacks, heightened threats, chants of ‘Death to America’ once more echoing across the Middle East, Iran and its allies vowing revenge”, he added.
“A president who says he wants to end endless war in the Middle East is bringing us dangerously close to starting a brand-new one”, Biden added.
He also lashed out at Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, which has made the US an “international outlier” and sowed the seeds of the ongoing crisis.
In December, the latest data by the Morning Consult, a daily polling survey, showed that Biden led the poll with 31 per cent support for the second week in a row, two points higher than the first week of the month.
The 2020 Democratic Party presidential debate takes place among candidates in the campaign for the party’s nomination for the US President in the 2020 presidential election. The next debate is scheduled for January 14, 2020.