As Saudi Arabia Burns, Pompeo Blames Iran—and Trump Makes a Lame Claim About Killing Bin Laden’s Son
On Saturday morning, even as Saudi oil facilities blazed from an unprecedented drone attack, world markets braced for a huge surge in prices and the prospects of war with Iran loomed large on the smoke-filled horizon, the White House, weirdly, confirmed information leaked in July to the effect that Hamza bin Laden, son of the infamous killed-by-Obama Osama bin Laden, had been snuffed in a U.S. counterterror operation.
The statement did not come out as a Trumpian tweet, but as an official press release from the office of the White House press secretary. It didn’t say how the younger Bin Laden was killed. It didn’t say when. It didn’t say where, apart from “the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.”
Although it’s conceivable that it took until now for forensic scientists working on whatever was left of Hamza to confirm his DNA (they presumably have his father’s on file), the timing raises questions about the administration’s larger foreign policy, mainly whether the president’s tough guy credentials can actually coexist with an approach that’s been incoherent and, fundamentally, weak.