quote:

But the future commander in chief struck a very different tone in the past, frequently firing off tweets at odds with his present stance toward Tehran — including nearly a dozen accusing former President Barack Obama of orchestrating an attack on Iran solely for electoral benefit.

He first made the accusation in November 2011, predicting an attack would occur in the “not too distant future because it will help him win the election.”

He elaborated on his position a few days later in a since-deleted vlog. In the video, reposted by archiving site Factbase, Trump reasons that “the only way [Obama] figures that he's going to get reelected — and is sure as you're sitting there — is to start a war with Iran.”

While Trump allows that Obama shouldn’t take a military option off the table, “to start a war in order to get elected, and I believe that is going to happen, would be an outrage.” Instead, Trump asserts that the U.S. was in the prime position to negotiate with Iran, and dings Obama for allegedly possessing “absolutely no ability to negotiate.”

“Isn't it pathetic?” he asks, before the video cuts to him praising the ouster of Occupy Wall Street protesters.

Here are the rest of the future president’s past comments on an Obama administration strike on Iran:

In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2011

I wonder if @BarackObama has promised Iran and China that he can be more flexible after his last election?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2012

Remember what I said about @BarackObama attacking Iran before the election--I hope the Iranians are not so (cont) http://t.co/0uQsm9t4

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 4, 2012

Just as I predicted, @BarackObama is preparing a possible attack on Iran right before November. http://t.co/ISaJp1xo

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2012

I always said @BarackObama will attack Iran, in some form, prior to the election.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2012

Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2012

Don't let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected--be careful Republicans!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2012


Trump's haranguing continued after Obama was reelected, re-upping his accusation several more times before apparently dropping it.

I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2013

Remember what I previously said--Obama will someday attack Iran in order to show how tough he is.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 25, 2013

Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly-not skilled!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2013

quote:

My @FoxNews interview with @gretawire discussing the #CNNDebate and how to deal with Iran without using force http://t.co/RRlCeGGt

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2012

With respect to Iran, we have all the cards--they are scared stiff! I can't believe we aren't able to negotiate (cont) http://t.co/J4jrLifR

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 6, 2012

We have all the cards. Now is the time to make a great deal with Iran.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2012

We should be able to negotiate a deal with Iran because they know we could blow them away to the Stone Age.They just don't believe we would.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2012

quote:

American oil workers were fleeing Iraq on Friday, as fears grew of war between the United States and Iran. At sermons in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, worshipers chanted, “Death to America!”

And in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad, where antigovernment protesters have gathered for months, a banner went up with a pointed message to both Iran and the United States: “Keep your conflicts away from Iraq.”

Iraqis awoke to the news on Friday that Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran, the architect of Iran’s dominating influence over Iraq, had been killed in an American drone strike near the Baghdad airport, along with several others.

Even before the shock of the brazen killing wore off, Iraqi factions were weighing their responses. Militias with ties to Iran vowed bloody revenge. The prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, condemned the attack as “an outrageous breach to Iraqi sovereignty” and said Parliament would meet to discuss the future of the United States presence in Iraq.

quote:

More broadly, the events raised a single, overarching question: can the United States maintain a cooperative security relationship with Iraq given the upheaval the assassination has provoked? The question was already coursing through the halls of power in Baghdad, even as the Trump administration said Friday that it was rushing new troops to the region in response to the crisis.

The airstrike on General Suleimani “was a clear breach of the terms of the American forces’ presence,” Mr. Abdul Mahdi said.

He said that Parliament would meet in the coming days to consider “appropriate measures to preserve the dignity of Iraq and its security and sovereignty,” including whether to ask the Americans to leave.

It could well turn out that the killing of General Suleimani, intended as a shot against Iran, could accelerate one of Iran’s long-term objectives: pushing the United States military out of Iraq.

“I think in his death he put the final nail in the coffin of the U.S. military presence in Iraq,” said Mohammad Shabani, a doctoral researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London who focuses on Iran-Iraq relations. “If Iran can erase the U.S. military presence in Iraq and all it has to do is give up five Iranian military men, would Iran do it? I think the answer is yes.”

The United States has nearly 5,000 troops in Iraq on a handful of bases.

But whether they stay or go, the American power in Iraq was only likely to be diminished.

“One sure result of the U.S. strike is that the era of U.S.-Iraq cooperation is over,” Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former American diplomat, wrote on Twitter. “The U.S. diplomatic & mil presence will end b/c Iraq asks us to depart or our presence is just a target or both. The result will be greater Iranian influence, terrorism and Iraqi infighting.”

More than 16 years after the American invasion of Iraq, a devastating conflict that cost close to $1 trillion and claimed about 5,000 American lives, Iran is the dominant power in Iraq, and its grip on Baghdad was on vivid display this week, even before General Suleimani’s killing.

When American airstrikes attacked the bases of a pro-Iranian militia on Sunday, killing at least 24 of its fighters, Iraqi officials spoke in one voice condemning the United States for violating Iraqi sovereignty, but few criticized the militia for carrying out the attack that killed an American contractor and precipitated the airstrikes.

When militia fighters marched on the American embassy on Tuesday to attack it, Iraqi security forces stepped aside to let them pass.

And as they lay siege to the embassy, setting fire to buildings and effectively blockading embassy personnel in the embassy overnight, Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi found that he was powerless to get them to leave.

For 24 hours, he held almost constant emergency meetings with the militia leaders, urging them to withdraw, according to officials involved in the meetings.

“Please, you are putting me in a critical situation,” he begged, according to Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf. “We are a state, and we have to conduct ourselves as a state. We have to protect these embassies.”

He finally persuaded the militia leaders to withdraw their forces only by threatening to leave his job and “leave the country to chaos,” according to Iraqi officials familiar with the exchanges.

Experts said that if the Trump administration had a strategy to work with the Iraqi government to achieve stability and sovereignty — through diplomatic and economic engagement — the killing of General Suleimani in a drone strike early Friday would have provided a measure of leverage.

Kenneth M. Pollack, a former C.I.A. official who is an expert on Iraq and Iran at the American Enterprise Institute, said the assassination means that, at least for a time, “Iraqi politicians will be less fearful of Iran and more willing to listen to the Americans.” The Iranians in Iraq, he said, having lost their leader, will be on their heels, trying to figure out what to do next.

But, he said, the United States seems to have no policy on Iraq beyond using the country as a base to confront Iran.

“I have been talking to my friends at State and there is no effort to use this to push Iraq in a better direction,” he said. He called the killing “a tactical move directed at Iran without a wider regional strategy.”

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:
Maybe Iran could end this by targeting tRump properties around the world and keeping Americans out of his mess....

quote:

Iran, Trump wrote, “is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets” in revenge for Soleimani’s death. Trump said the United States has “targeted 52 Iranian sites” and that some were “at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

“The USA wants no more threats!” Trump said, adding that the 52 targets represented the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days after being seized at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 - an enduring sore spot in U.S.-Iranian relations.

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:
Just imagine if the Iraqis throw us out...

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:.

Provocative. Reckless. Just an episode of TV drama bluster for bluster's sake.

quote:

Iran, Trump wrote, “is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets” in revenge for Soleimani’s death. Trump said the United States has “targeted 52 Iranian sites” and that some were “at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

“The USA wants no more threats!” Trump said, adding that the 52 targets represented the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days after being seized at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 - an enduring sore spot in U.S.-Iranian relations.

quote:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the House will vote soon on a war powers resolution to limit President Donald Trump's military actions after he ordered the killing of a top Iranian general last week, escalating tensions with Tehran.

"Last week, the Trump administration conducted a provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials," Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues Sunday. "This action endangered our servicemembers, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran."

"As members of Congress, our first responsibility is to keep the American people safe," she continued. "For this reason, we are concerned that the administration took this action without the consultation of Congress and without respect for Congress’s war powers granted to it by the Constitution."

She said the House resolution is similar to one introduced in the Senate by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

"It reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days," she said.