General Dan Cain and Donald Trump
Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst Larry Johnson claims that US President Donald Trump considered using the nuclear option against Iran but abandoned it after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Kaine responded with a firm “no”.““Trump was very interesting and asked about the use of nuclear weapons. To his credit, General Kaine said very firmly, ‘Absolutely not’. So there was a discussion around the use of nuclear weapons,” Johnson told ANI.He further claimed that after Kaine objected, Trump publicly stated that he would not use nuclear weapons.“It (the nuclear proposal) was vetoed by General Kaine, which is why Donald Trump later came out at the conference and admitted, no, no, no, we will never use nuclear weapons. OK Taking that out of the equation… Later, we got confirmation that the question of the use of nuclear weapons had arisen. We discussed it and were shot down by General Kane,” he added.When explaining the chain of command, Johnson pointed out that Trump, as commander in chief, can order the use of nuclear weapons, but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is not a formal member of the operational command chain.“It’s not so much a veto but more the role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. By law, he (Kaine) is the senior military adviser to the president. Now, the chain of command for the use of nuclear weapons is that if Trump orders it, then it goes to the general in charge of what’s called Strategic Command,” the former CIA analyst explained. “He (Trump) will now go through the secretary of defense, or the secretary of war (Pete Hegseth), and then from the secretary of war to the general who commands Strategic Command. Strategic Command will be responsible for executing this mission. “However, Johnson argued that such a decision could lead to Kane resigning in protest if his advice was ignored.“And, you know, what that means is, if Trump does try to move on or anything like that, you could see Chairman Kaine possibly resigning. You just say, no, this is beyond the line. This is unacceptable. This is a real military consideration. General Kaine is not expressing a political view,” he said.Trump’s April 7 post on The Truth Society raised concerns that the United States might take nuclear action against Iran.“An entire civilization will die tonight and never rise again. I don’t want that to happen, but it might happen,” the Republican leader wrote on his social media platform.However, the next day he announced that the ceasefire would continue. The war in the Middle East began on February 28 when the United States and Israel jointly attacked Iran.The United States remains the only country to use nuclear weapons in war, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945 during World War II.
