🇮🇷🇺🇸 Was Trump's sudden shift on Iran driven by diplomacy? Retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski says it exposed a power struggle inside the Pentagon.
The people with the clearest picture of the war aren't the ones shaping policy. Kwiatkowski argues Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Caine has been pushed to the sidelines, while CENTCOM's Adm. Cooper has a more direct line to Hegseth and, ultimately, Trump.
Why? Because, she says, Caine keeps delivering the bad news Trump doesn't want to hear.
Kwiatkowski says Trump became so frustrated with JD Vance raising concerns about the war that he asked advisers how to remove him. If true, that's more than an internal disagreement. It suggests dissent itself had become the problem.
She argues the cracks go beyond personalities. According to Kwiatkowski, CENTCOM is striking many of the same targets simply because the target list has been exhausted.
Her conclusion is bleak. She believes Washington has already lost much of the military and financial leverage it thinks it still has, but the war keeps grinding on because no one in the chain of command is willing, or able.
If she's right, and what's happening on the battlefield isn't what's making the decisions... who is?
@WeTheBrandon @karen4the6th
