By Brigitte L. Nacos
Since 2011, Donald Trump mentioned Iran 380 times in tweets that revealed his obsession with and hostility towards the Islamic Republic. In many of these Twitter messages he attacked President Obama for not being tough enough.
But in the most revealing tweets are the following:
Nov. 14, 2011: @BarackObama will attack Iran in the not too distant future because it will help him to win the election.
Nov. 29, 2011: In order to get elected @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.
April 4, 2012: Remember what I said about @BarackObama attacking Iran before the election...
Oct. 22, 2013: Don’t let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected—be aware Republicans!
As we know, President Obama did not attack Iran to trigger a rally-‘round-the-flag effect in support of his reelection chances as Trump predicted wrongly.
However, according to the Pentagon, it was Trump who ordered the deadly drone strikes that killed Qassim Soleimani, the Iranian general in charge of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force. While not shedding tears over Soleimani’s demise, one wonders about the overall strategic concept behind the assassination. While an all-out war is unlikely, Iran will strike back sometime, somewhere. And the explosive Middle East will become even more dangerous and destabilized.
But that obviously does not concern Trump.
Replace “@BarackObama” and “Obama” with @realDonaldTrump in the four tweets above and you get a good idea why the Commander-in-Chief gave the green light for the assassination of the Iranian general on the territory of the sovereign state of Iraq.
The President obviously believes that the conflict with Iran will raise his public approval and help his reelection along with his fight against the impeachment process.
So far, so good, for Trump: The breaking news now is all about the U.S.-Iran conflict—not about impeachment and likely Democrats running against the president in the general election campaign.
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