To the Editor:

Re “Trump’s Choice of Killing Stunned Defense Officials” (front page, Jan. 5):

I was appalled to read that military aides included the option of killing Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran simply to make other options look more reasonable. That may work when the president is actually a mature adult, but not when he has the mind of, and acts like, a 12-year-old boy.

I hold the military and Pentagon responsible for all of the innocent lives that I fear will be lost as a direct result of this irresponsible action. What happens the next time when the aides put on the list the option of dropping a nuclear bomb on Tehran, with the hope that the president will choose a different option?

Our system of government works only if there are some actual, thinking adults in the room. It doesn’t appear that our current system has a built-in mechanism for anyone to review, advise or consent before this president makes even worse choices in the days to come.

Steve Fox

Columbia, Md.

To the Editor:

You report that an American official describes the evidence supporting the Suleimani assassination as “thin.” That assessment echoes what the head of British intelligence secretly told his government, nearly 20 years ago, about President George W. Bush’s excuse for invading Iraq: “the case was thin” and “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” of going to war.