President Donald Trump once sent out a flurry of tweets predicting that his predecessor would attack Iran to shore up support just before his reelection in 2012. Instead, President Trump appears to have done just that with the fatal strike on Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani Thursday.
Collected by a Bloomberg reporter:
The president repeatedly predicted years ago that his predecessor would attack Iran in order to get re-elected. pic.twitter.com/9zGciVOCjy
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 3, 2020
Trump also called President Barack Obama “weak and ineffective,” saying that he would attack Iran due to his lack of ability to “negotiate.”
In 2011, Trump believed Obama would start a war with Iran to help win an election ? pic.twitter.com/I2yFQrvkTY
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) January 3, 2020
Trump ordered the strike on Soleimani at the Baghdad airport, the Department of Justice announced Thursday night.
Many Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), issued dire warnings about the consequences of ratcheting up the tension in an already volatile region. Iranian leaders have called Soleimani a “martyr” and are promising revenge.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that there was an “imminent threat” to Americans in the region that prompted the drone strike, and said the administration would do “their best” to release that relevant intelligence.
The State Department is now urging Americans to leave Iraq and stay away from the U.S. embassy as the region braces for retaliation from the Iranian military.
Trump broke with Obama back in May 2018 by pulling the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, earning a rare public rebuke from his usually taciturn predecessor. Calling Trump’s pull out “misguided,” Obama said that without the pact, “the United States could eventually be left with a losing choice between a nuclear-armed Iran or another war in the Middle East.”
