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Why did Trump order the Assassination of the Iranian General? The President’s Twitter Archive provides the Best Answer

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.  

When the Dear Leader is Said to Be Sent by God

By Brigitte L. Nacos

“Loved watching the crowd fill up for the 547th Rally in Green Bay. There has never been and probably never will be a movement like this again. Only God could deliver such a savior to our nation and only God could allow me to help. God bless America!”

The above tweet posted by Donald Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale on April 30, 2019 celebrated the U.S. President as savior sent to America by God. Parscale was and is not an exception among those who worship the Dear Leader in the White House as God-sent gift. Others in Trump’s orbit and many of his supporters among Evangelicals--ministers and rank and file supporters-- believe that he is the leader of a divine movement blessed by the Lord.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the recently departed White House press secretary, told the Christian Broadcast Network News when she was still in office,  

”I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times, and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president. And that’s why he’s there, and I think he has done a tremendous job in supporting a lot of the things that people of faith really care about.”

Earlier this week and following Trump’s racist tweets against four members of Congress, all women of color, Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the only black cabinet member, praised Trump during a cabinet meeting in the White House,

“You know," he said, "as I told you before, I think God is using you.”

This kind of worship is not unique among coteries surrounding divisive, racist, illiberal leaders. And it is not unique for hard-core rank-and-file supporters.

Comparisons to those surrounding Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany are instructive:  

Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, said in a speech, “With all our powers we will endeavor to be worthy of the Führer [Hitler] thou, O Lord, has sent us!”  

Hermann Goering, one of the most fanatical and most influential figures in the Nazi party and Hitler’s government, told the nation, “God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith that he [Hitler] was sent to us by God to save Germany.”

Joseph Goebbels, Secretary of Propaganda, who had grown up in a very religious family, stated, “We have a feeling that Germany has been transformed into a great house of God, including all classes, professions and creeds, where the Führer [Hitler] as our mediator stood before the throne of the Almighty."

There are valuable lessons to be learned from the past, But too often, as in today's America, those lessons and warnings are ignored by open worshipers and silent enablers of the occupant of the Oval Office.    

Trump’s Dangerous Wrecking Crew

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Trump does not unite but he divides people and nations;

Trump does not build but he destroys bridges;

Trump does not solve but he creates problems;

Trump does not clean up but he corrupts politics;

Trump does not uphold but he violates democratic values;

Trump does not tell the truth but he lies day-in and day-out.

Voices of reason and sanity are not heard in President Trump’s White House and Administration. Instead, the intellectually and ethically challenged narcissist-in-chief is validated by his like-minded wrecking crew of extremists in domestic (i.e., AG Jeff Sessions and EPA Director Scott Pruitt) and foreign/national security (i.e., John Bolton and Mike Pompeo) politics and policy.

In her new book titled “Fascism,” former Secretary of State Madeline Albright writes in the concluding chapter, “Trump is the first anti-democratic president in modern U.S. history…If transplanted to a country with fewer democratic safeguards, he would audition for dictator.”

I wonder, though, how many of those safeguards are left and whether the remaining ones will crumble under constant attacks by Trump’s wrecking crew.

The Republican majorities in both Congressional chambers certainly are not democratic safeguards against presidential encroachment. Instead of providing the inter-branch checks and balances prescribed in the U.S. Constitution, GOP members are on bended knees before their dear leader.

The judiciary still holds strong. The question is, how long?

As candidate and as president, Mr. Trump has relentlessly attacked officials in the Department of Justice, the FBI, the intelligence community, and judges whose rulings he did not like. Just read a few of his many tweets for confirmation.

And now, Republican members of congressional committees, such as Rep. Devin Nunes, act more like President Trump’s defense attorneys than members of an independent legislative branch in their war against the Department of Justice, especially independent counsel Robert Mueller, Deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein, and most recently even AG Sessions—all of them Republicans.

A free press is the most important foundation of a democratic system. Thus, the First Amendment! 

 Major news organizations have maintained their independence thus far. After providing “breaking news” all the time to Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination, the press’s investigative reporting had displayed in the last 18 months and continues to report on the dark underbelly of President Trump and his supporting cast.

But Trump’s attacks against the “fake” media are of great concern. Today, he threatened to take access credentials away from the press. He has repeatedly threatened changes in the libel law—even though that would not be in his power.

And, then, there is Trump’s impact the rest of the world.

When Democracy Dies in Bright Daylight

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After Donald Trump won the presidency, the Washington Post began to print the warning “Democracy Dies in Darkness” underneath its masthead to highlight the need for journalism that speaks truth to power. After contributing to Mr. Trump’s stunning presidential nomination and election victory the Post and a number of other news organizations reclaimed belatedly their role as watchdog of government. Now, however, the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is no longer the right one to describe what we are witnessing on a daily basis.

Last century, the most authoritarian, dictatorial, and fascist leaders utilized the legitimate political process to win the most powerful office in the state. Once in the saddle they carried out immediately what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung—putting every public and private sector under the complete control of the leader, his hand-picked clique, his party. Think of Mussolini and Hitler.

Today’s autocrats, today’s fascist leaders consolidate state power not immediately like their predecessors but step by step over time. A good example is Hungary’s President Victor Orban who has openly proclaimed the end of liberal democracy and the advent of the “illiberal state” or illiberal democracy in his country modeled after Putin’s Russia and Erdogan’s Turkey. So far, there has been a purge of the civil service, curbs on the judiciary’s independence, intimidation of the press, establishment of election rules tilted in favor of parties that support him, and the vilification of foreigners.

Sounds familiar? Indeed! The U.S. president, too, has attacked Washington’s civil servants, declared war against the law enforcement apparatus and its leaders, fired highly placed officials in the Department of Justice and FBI,  called for their removal of more people across departments, presides over an administration with dangerous gaps in knowledgeable personnel. Just think of the dismantling of the Department of States’ Foreign Service professionals. And last but not least, think of President Trump’s attacks on the legitimacy and credibility of the news media.

Just like the current autocrats in Hungary and Poland and elsewhere, the narcissist in the White House speaks openly and frequently about his disregard for democratic rules of the game.

Of the people in all branches of government and all its institutions, Mr. Trump expects and demands loyalty to him alone—not to the constitution, not the law.  

Those are traits of dictatorial, fascist rulers.

The Most Dangerous Man in the World Sits in the White House and Spineless Republicans in the Congress Do Nothing to Prevent the Catastrophe that the President Himself Threatens

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Nine month-worth of 24/7 nightmares unleashed by Donald Trump’s daily menu of outrageous tweets and ludicrous deeds are enough to realize that Trump is an emperor without clothes.  

If you hoped this spoiled, narcissistic child-man would grow in the august Oval Office, you know now that there are no such miracles.

Every hour it becomes clearer that the President of the United States and supposed world leader is precisely what his own Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has called him—a moron who does not and does not want to understand our governmental system, its  institutions, and domestic and foreign policy-making, and most of all the U.S. Constitution.   

Today, October 12, 2017 is another “normal” day in the disturbing saga of Donald Trump’s presidency:

• He threatens to challenge NBC’s broadcast license because of the News Division’s credible reports that Trump demanded from the U.S. military a significant build-up in the nuclear arsenal.
• He announces the signing of yet another Executive Order to weaken Obamacare further by allowing insurances to sell cheap plans to the young and healthy.
• He threatens to end relief efforts in Puerto Rico where the majority of U.S. citizens still do not have electric power, lack drinking water and health services.
• The State Department announces that the United States withdraws from UNESCO, the United Nation’s agency for the sciences, culture, and communication, because of UNESCO's "anti-Israel bias."
• Congress wrestles with President Trump’s announcement that he will not certify the Nuclear Deal with Iran.

All those irrational threats and actions came before 12 noon today. Plenty of time to add to the insanity that has the last word in Washington with ripple effects around the country and the world.

And what does the Republican majority in both houses of the Congress do?

Besides Bob Corker, the courageous U.S. Senator of Tennessee, nobody puts the interests of the whole country first.

There is silence--even though the President has threatened repeatedly war against North Korea-- in the words of Corker --WWIII.

The White Nationalist Terrorism in Charlottesville and Trump’s Moral Impotency

By Brigitte L. Nacos

President Trump who doesn’t miss any opportunity to condemn “radical Muslim terrorism” could not bring himself to condemn yesterday’s white nationalist terrorism in Charlottesville, Virginia. Instead, he condemned hatred and bigotry “on many sides.”  

The white supremacists with confederate flags and the neo-Nazis with the Third Reich’s swastika flags came to Charlottesville equipped with guns, rifles, baseball bats, and an assortment of other weaponry—not to peacefully “Unite the Right” but to meet counter-demonstrators with violence.

When a 20-year old man from Ohio drove deliberately into a crowd of people, it was an act of vehicular terrorism—similar to jihadist attacks in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden. Terrorists learn from each other; they copy what they perceive as successful act of terrorism regardless of their ideology, their grievances, and their causes.

Interestingly, the perpetrator’s mother told reporters that she thought the event her son attended had “something to do with Trump.”

It did. The alt-right movement that has finally consolidated the various strains of white supremacy, white nationalism, and Neo-Nazi groupings was during the campaign and remains squarely on the side of fierce Trump supporters. On the eve of the violent demonstration, White supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke said,

“This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump. Because he said he’s going to take our country back. That’s what we gotta do.”

Some of the white nationalists wore Trump’s red caps with the slogan “Make America Great Again.”

Even though, Trump did not call the vehicular attack “terrorism” nor did he distance himself from the Alt-Right.

For a good reason: He is morally impotent with respect to the dangerous Alt-Right ideology with its ugly takes on domestic politics and foreign policy as long as he has prominent Alt-Righters among his advisers in the White House starting but not ending with the ex-Breitbart boss Stephen Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka.  

Even if his chief-of-staff or someone else convinces Trump to condemn alt-right terrorism, the president cannot be believed as long as the Bannon contingent remains in the White House.

“The Russian Thing” and the Threat of War

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Beleaguered President Donald Trump wants nothing more than make “the Russian thing” go way.

He spent political capital by firing Acting Attorney General Sally Yates und FBI Director James Comey for not buckling under his pressure tactics; he lost moral authority by bullying Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others for the same reasons.

Trump and his supporting cast do not merely spin reality, they outright lie.

And yet “the Russian thing” becomes more threatening by the day--for President Trump and for members of his family and his supporting cast.

Even Mr. Trump must now fear the truth in the German proverb: Lies have short legs…

Judging from some Republicans’ warnings, Trump would be ill advised to follow his urge to fire AG Sessions to clear the way for removing Special Prosecutor and former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

That’s why there is reason to worry about Trump’s next possible steps to remove “the Russian thing” from media and public attention.

One sure way to put “the Russian thing” on the back burner would be a major foreign policy crisis—especially one involving military conflict. As we know all too well, in such crises both newsrooms and the public tend to rally around the flag and around the president.

That’s why Senator Lindsey Graham’s revelation that Mr. Trump contemplates military actions against North Korea is so worrisome. According to Newsweek, Graham said, "There will be a war with North Korea over their missile program if they continue to try to hit America with an ICBM. [Trump] has told me that. I believe him, and if I were China, I would believe him too."

Of course, North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities are major threats to many countries’ national security—including ours. Trump told Graham, “If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here.”

First, then, this president makes clear that he does not care about foreign victims of war and second, he seems unaware that tens of thousands of U.S. troops are deployed near the border between the two Koreas.

With the diplomatic capabilities of the Department of State dangerously curtailed, key positions in the department and in missions overseas not filled, the prospects for skillful diplomacy are slim. Add to that an inexperienced Secretary of State who seems to be dodged by Trump’s son-in-law and others in the White House.

In Trump’s Reality Show Even the Generals Surrender

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Not enough that GOP leaders and foot soldiers in Congress, elected offices around the country, and so-called experts in think tanks continue to defend the indefensible in the Trump campaign, transition operation, and White House. What many observers described as the adults around Trump, cool-headed generals, have surrendered as well.

John Kelly, the Secretary of Homeland Security and H.R. McMaster, the National Security Adviser, went public this weekend with nonsensical excuses, even endorsements of Jared Kushner’s reported efforts during the transition period to use secret Russian communication means to communicate with Moscow’s decision makers. Since nothing happens in the Kremlin without Vladimir Putin, one has to assume that the communication the political novice Kushner had in mind was with his father-in-law’s most admired dictator Putin.

Come to think of, Kelly’s statement shouldn’t have surprised. Since taking over at the DHS the retired marine general has echoed or trumped Trump’s crazy ideas beginning with the need for The Wall to separating children from their parents in the most cruel enforcement policy against undocumented immigrants.

As for General McMaster, his impeccable credentials in the military took a hit earlier this month, when he refuted a Washington Post story that President Trump had revealed highly classified intelligence during his meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov and Russia’s  Ambassador Kislyak by countering points that the Post had not made. Now add to this the General’s defense of a backchannel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin that Kushner tried to establish.

And then there is James Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, who spoke out in support of his boss’s shocking behavior at NATO headquarters in Brussels that threatens the seven decades old transatlantic defense arrangement between the U.S. and European allies. As Mattis explained, previous presidents, too, complained about European countries’ insufficient financial contributions to NATO. What the General conveniently omitted is the real reason for the rift in the alliance, namely, Trump’s refusal to endorse NATO’s mutual defense agreement as stated in Article 5. Coming on the heels of Trump’s campaign statement that NATO is obsolete, Secretary Mattis, who once commanded NATO’s Supreme Allied Command for Transformation, should know better than depicting Trump’s dangerous  reality show in Europe as merely business as usual.

Putin and his team are rejoicing. They wanted nothing more than a split in the transatlantic defense alliance. And now they got it.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is right. Europe can no longer count on the America of Donald Trump as a dependable NATO ally.

As it turns out, the generals are not the voices of reason, not the adults in White House and administration.

Dictators Have a Fan in the White House

By Brigitte L. Nacos

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines is a despicable human rights violator whose anti-drug campaign has resulted in the death of thousands of alleged drug dealers and addicts who are killed without being arrested and tried. While human rights organizations have condemned Duterte, the Philippine’s ruler has a fan in the White House. As the New York Times reports today, in late April President Trump called his counterpart in Manila to congratulate him for the excellent job he does in solving his country’s drug problem.

According to the transcript of the exchange Trump told his idol, “I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem. Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”

I wished I could say that I was shocked when reading this latest revelation.  I was not. After all, Trump has made no secret of his admiration for the most autocratic rulers of our time—most of all, of course, Vladimir Putin. During last year’s campaign, Trump expressed his admiration for the Russian strongman repeatedly.

On one occasion, Trump stated, “I've already said he is very much of a leader. The man has very strong control over his country. You can say, 'Oh, isn’t that a terrible thing,' I mean, the man has very strong control over his country. Now it's a very different system, and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly in that system he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader."

Once in the White House, Trump did not shake German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s hand after their meeting. But he surely showed his high regard when welcoming Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Sisi. As Joshua Hammer wrote in the New York Review of Books, “Human rights groups in Egypt estimate that between 40,000 and 60,000 political prisoners, including both Muslim Brotherhood members and secular pro-democracy activists, now languish in the country’s jails. Twenty prisons have been built since Sisi took power.”

But human rights violations do not bother Mr. Trump. “We agree on so many things,” the President told Sisi when they met in the White House. Sisi, Trump told him, has done “a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt…You have a great friend and ally in the United States and in me!”

The First 10 Days: Who Pulls Strings in the Trump White House?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The first ten days of the Trump presidency gave enough reasons for alarm. Not merely because of President DJT’s continued bias in favor of alternative facts.

Clueless in matters of democratic governance and the truism that details matter in the implementation of executive orders and laws the president and his motley crew acted according to a reckless blueprint in unprecedented haste and thoughtlessness.

The ideological scheme guiding the new administration is the work of Steve Bannon, the former boss of Breitbart, one of the more influential among the far-right nationalist, nativist, and conspiracy theory promoting online organs.

During last year’s campaign, when Trump emerged as a serious presidential contender, some neo-Nazi voices expressed support for the reality show star with the caveat that as president Trump would only be a temporary front-man for the real national-socialist revolution under a bona fide leader of the cause.

For now, Trump’s chief strategist Bannon is foremost among those pulling the strings in the White House as he was in the decisive stretch of the presidential campaign.

He was the one who wrote the inauguration speech along with fellow hardliner and White House advisor Stephen Miller.

Bannon was—and is--the strongest advocate of Trump’s controversial executive order against Muslims that was enacted Friday night before relevant government agencies were informed of its full content and meaning. Not surprisingly, Bannon and Miller overruled Department of Homeland Security officials who did not want to include green card holders in the travel ban.

That the ban excludes Muslim majority countries whose citizens actually committed terrorism within America’s borders and/or have acute problems with terrorism today seems to suggest that the grey eminence in the White House does take his boss’s business interests into consideration, namely, in Turkey, the Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Those countries, along with others, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, are not part of the ban. That much for principles in fighting terrorism at home…

I actually agree with President Trump that terrorists are evil. I disagree that we must be equally as evil—or more so—in order to defeat terrorism.  

Most troublesome among the dubious decisions in the opening days of Trump’s governance were changes in the operations of the National Security Council which is led by the conspiracy theorist and Islamophobia-in-chief Michael Flynn. While Steve Bannon will be a regular at Council meetings, the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will no longer attend all meetings but merely those falling into their responsibilities and expertise. What a scary state of affairs: Leading intelligence and military officials are no longer regulars leaving lots of room to maneuver for Flynn, formerly a paid contributor to Vladimir Putin’s RT propaganda network, and Bannon, like his boss an admirer of Putin and authoritarian rulers in general.

What's next?

P.S. According to Politico, Senator John McCain said today, “I am worried about the National Security Council. Who are the members of it and who are the permanent members? The appointment of Mr. Bannon is something which is a radical departure from any National Security Council in history." 

Unfortunately, McCain praised Security Advisor Flynn although he is very critical of his pro-Russian stance.