President Donald Trump could certainly claim credit Thursday evening for taking out the Iranian who was inarguably called "the most dangerous man in the Middle East."
But whether he will gain ground in his bid for re-election in November for the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qasem Soleimani is questionable.
Two top advisors to President Ronald Reagan and former Vice President Al Gore told Newsmax on Friday he is unlikely to benefit politically from the assassination of the general who was considered the most powerful Iranian after the Ayatollah.
"As a purely political gesture, it has no lasting meaning," said Richard V. Allen, Reagan's top foreign policy advisor in his 1980 campaign and his first national security advisor in the White House. "By the time of the 2020 presidential election, it will be forgotten, submerged in many other dramatic events."
Lawrence Haas, the former communications director for Gore and a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, agreed.
"In November of 2020, I'm hard-pressed to believe that most Americans, who pay almost no attention to foreign policy to begin with, are going to care, either way, that a Trump-ordered strike killed a guy — albeit Iran's top military commander — who they've never heard of," Haas told us.
"Let's face it: no one gave Lyndon Johnson any long-term political credit for retaliating in 1964 for a North Vietnamese attack in the Gulf of Tonkin or in 1965 for a Viet Cong attack at Pleiku. Instead, over the long term, they blamed him for the aftermath of his vast escalation in Vietnam, which left thousands of Americans dead and the nation in a quagmire. So, we need to see the aftermath of the Soleimani killing."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.