Trump says US will seek Iran war costs from Israel and Gulf allies

Trump says the United States plans to seek compensation from countries it “protected” during its war on Iran. In an interview with CBS News correspondent Ross Douthat that aired Sunday, he said such countries would “pay us any and all costs we had for the war.”

“We’re going to get all that money back,” Trump said. “They’re going to do it, 100 percent. Because without us, they wouldn’t exist.”

For the first time, Trump explicitly spoke of seeking compensation from Israel, which he said “wouldn’t exist” without US military intervention. Israel was a direct participant in the war against Iran from the outset. Trump said: “We decapitated their [Iran’s] nuclear arsenal. If I didn’t do that, there would be no Israel right now. Israel would be gone.”

The reimbursement demand comes after Trump and his Republican Party suffered losses in midterm elections, which the president has conceded was partly due to public discontent over the Iran war. Trump has since said the war is “effectively over” militarily, while defending his decision to start the conflict as “a very good decision.”

Earlier, Trump had said he would seek repayment from Gulf countries that benefit from the US military presence around the Strait of Hormuz, where US forces have been escorting vessels. “We’re protecting a very rich portion of the world, we’re spending money, and so what we’ve done is we’re going to be reimbursed for protection,” he said during a press briefing in July. He named Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait as countries that should pay. Gulf countries, however, have said they were not informed about Washington’s plans, even though Israel jointly launched the war with the US. They have since borne the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory attacks, and as members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, they have called for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, a call for peace that Romans 12:18 speaks to (Romans 12:18).

The full cost is likely to be higher, the article notes, because the figure excludes the cost of repairing damage to US military bases across the Middle East. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in September that the conflict would carry an additional cost of $2 billion to $3 billion for each month it continues.

Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, told Al Jazeera that Trump’s comments are “best understood as political signalling rather than a serious policy proposal.” Bader al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University and associate fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme, said Gulf states are likely to take the comments “with a grain of salt.” He added: “I think what [Trump] stated on an American news channel was for domestic consumption, and I think that’s how most of the Gulf states will take it.”

Source: Read the original report