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Gabbard Compares Haley, Bolton to Al-Qaeda: They All 'Want War With Iran'

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard / Getty
May 15, 2019

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) released a video on Twitter Tuesday grouping Trump administration figures like John Bolton and Nikki Haley with the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, accusing them all of wanting war with Iran.

"Trump says he doesn't want war with Iran, but that's exactly what he wants, because that's exactly what Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu, al-Qaeda, Bolton, Haley, and other neocons and neolibs want," Gabbard said in the video. "That's what he puts first. Not America."

It wasn't clear if Gabbard believed al-Qaeda fell under the "neocon" or "neolib" label. Gabbard and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) have spoken out against potential military conflict with Iran.

Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran and strong opponent of American military intervention, has made opposition to American foreign intervention a cornerstone of her underdog 2020 presidential campaign.

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1128291372375707648

Haley served as Trump's United Nations ambassador from 2017 until the end of last year and spoke out strongly against Iran's malign activities, while Bolton is his current national security adviser. Bolton ordered revisions to a Pentagon plan that would envision sending as many as 120,000 troops to Iran if the country attacked the United States or accelerated its nuclear weapons work, according to the New York Times.

President Trump disputed the report, however, in remarks to reporters on Tuesday.

Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake poked fun at Gabbard's stark comparisons, tweeting Wednesday, "Osama bin Laden was a contributing editor at Commentary in the early 90s and Marty used to publish Ayman al Zawahiri’s book reviews in the old TNR."

Aside from having to apologize for strongly anti-LGBT positions earlier in her career, Gabbard hasn't gotten significant attention during her candidacy.

She has also shown a strange affinity for the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, saying the rogue country is not the the enemy of the U.S. and refusing to say whether Assad, who has used chemical weapons against his own people, is a war criminal.