A missile hit a Riyadh airport terminal and killed 12 people, and the president of the United States responded on his way to a campaign rally in Tennessee by saying, 'We may. We're gonna look at it.' Asked whether the carnage would change his announced plan to hold off on striking Iran until after the midterms, he gave the same answer: 'Well, we're gonna take a look.'
Four Strikes in Five Days on One Airport
Here are the facts, as laid out by CBS News and the AP. A missile struck a passenger terminal at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday and killed 12 people. More than 300 others were wounded, some critically. It was the deadliest attack on a Gulf Arab nation since the Iran war began.
One of the dead was an American citizen, according to the U.S. embassy in Riyadh.
Then it happened again. On Sunday a projectile hit the domestic terminal complex at the same airport, killing a Pakistani national and injuring 11 more. That airport has now been struck four times in five days and has been closed since Saturday. The Saudi-led coalition says the Houthis claimed responsibility for those attacks and others, and Saudi Arabia's aviation authority described the strikes as part of continued attacks on civil aviation facilities in the kingdom.
The Embassy Tells Americans to Be Careful at Airports
On Monday the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia warned Americans to exercise 'extreme caution' at all major airports in the country. The statement cited the additional attacks on King Khalid in Riyadh and a targeted attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam on October 11.
Read that again. All major airports. Not a travel advisory about a region, not a heads-up about one neighborhood. The country's entire commercial aviation system is now a target list.
The death toll across the weekend reached 13. That is 13 people who were trying to get on a plane, pick someone up, or work a shift at an airport, and whose names almost certainly will not come up at the next rally.
'We Move Very Quickly,' Says a Man Still Deciding
Trump left the White House on Saturday for that Tennessee rally and was asked about joining Saudi Arabia's offensive against the Houthis. His answer, in full: 'We may. We're gonna look at it. We just found out about the recent attack. So we'll make a decision. We move very quickly.'
This is a war that, by CBS's own description, has made the Houthis an epicenter of a regional conflict between the U.S. and Iran. The ceasefire between the two countries collapsed in July. The U.S. has been blockading Iranian ports since July 14. And the commander in chief's public posture toward a deadly escalation involving an American casualty is that he will look at it.
Maybe he is being strategic. Maybe he is keeping options open, which is what presidents are supposed to do. But the tone is that of a man asked whether he wants dessert.
The Midterm Pause Nobody Asked For
Then there is the part that should make everyone sit up. Trump had previously announced he would not launch any potential strikes on Iran until after the midterms. Think about what that sentence means. A decision about striking a nation in an active shooting war is, by the president's own telling, on a schedule set by the election calendar.
A reporter asked whether the Riyadh attack changes that. His answer was 'Well, we're gonna take a look.'
So the question hanging over this war is not whether military force is warranted, what the objectives are, or what Congress thinks. It is whether the timing works for the ballot. If you have ever wondered how it feels to have your country's war powers treated as a campaign asset, this is what it feels like.
Meanwhile, the Blockade Rolls On
None of this is happening in a vacuum. CENTCOM announced that a U.S. fighter jet fired a 'precision munition' at the Panama-flagged Ocean Molica, also known as the Arika Sun, in the Gulf of Oman on Saturday. The strike disabled the ship's propulsion without harming the crew, according to the military. The vessel had recently departed an Iranian port. CENTCOM said a separate cargo vessel was disabled Sunday after its crew repeatedly ignored warnings and tried to run the blockade.
The running tally since July 14: four commercial vessels disabled, 135 ships turned around, and 10 tankers destroyed that CENTCOM believes are part of a shadow fleet moving sanctioned Iranian oil. Fighting continues near the Strait of Hormuz.
That is a lot of ordnance for a conflict the president describes as something he will look at.
The Dingo Take
'We move very quickly.' Sure you do. It has been months since the ceasefire collapsed, your blockade has been disabling ships for three of them, and the response to an American citizen dying in a terminal attack was a shrug delivered en route to a rally. Quick is not the word. Casual is closer.
Here is what bothers me most. A president can absolutely decide to stay out of a Saudi-Houthi fight, and there are real arguments for that. A president can also decide to go in. What a president should not do is let the electoral calendar sit in the room as a participant. When the guy running the war says he will 'take a look' at whether the midterms still dictate when he hits Iran, he has told you exactly whose interests are on the table.
Thirteen people are dead at airports. Hundreds more are wounded. An American is among the dead. The embassy is telling citizens to be careful at every major airport in a country we are tangled up in. And the commander in chief wants to know how it plays in Tennessee. That is not strategy. That is a campaign schedule with a body count.
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