Trump threatens to bomb Iran
President Trump threatened Iran with bombings and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program, Reuters reports. Said Trump: "If they don't make a deal, there will
politicalwire.com
Trump used Iran as a distraction during his first impeachment during his first term (late 2019), so that could be the goal here … but he is also so all over the map on tariffs and other policies, it seems unwise to assume this is only an attempt to drown out Signalgate and bad tariff coverage …
FLASHBACK 2019:
An Abrupt Move That Stunned Aides: Inside Trump’s Aborted Attack on Iran
President Trump’s decision to call off an airstrike on Iran in June looms large now as he weighs how to respond to attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia blamed on Tehran.
www.nytimes.com
“…
By the time President Trump met with congressional leaders on the afternoon of June 20, he had already decided to retaliate against Iran for shooting down an American surveillance drone. But for once, he kept his cards close to the vest, soliciting advice rather than doing all of the talking.
“Why don’t you go after the launch sites?” a Republican lawmaker asked.
“Well,” Mr. Trump replied with a hint, “I think you’ll like the decision.”
But barely three hours later, Mr. Trump had changed his mind. Without consulting his vice president, secretary of state or national security adviser, he reversed himself and, with ships readying missiles and airplanes already in the skies, told the Pentagon to
call off the airstrikeswith only 10 minutes to go. When Vice President Mike Pence and other officials returned to the White House for what they expected would be a long night of monitoring a military operation, they were stunned to learn the attack was off. …”
FLASHBACK LATE 2019 -2020:
American Oversight launched an investigation to shed light on the Trump administration’s management of foreign policy decisions regarding Iran.
americanoversight.org
“On Jan. 2, 2020, the
Pentagon announcedthat it had carried out a military strike in Iraq that killed the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. The targeting of one of Iran’s most senior officials was seen as a major escalation in the increasingly hostile relationship between the U.S. and Iran, and then-President Donald Trump’s bellicose threats on Twitter —
including threats to target sites “important to Iran & the Iranian culture” — suggested that de-escalation was not a White House priority. …”
“… Back in the spring of 2019, alarm grew about
whether the administration was laying the legal groundwork for military action against Iran when the State Department announced that it would designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
as a foreign terrorist organization, saying that “Iran continues to allow al Qaeda operatives to reside in Iran.” The 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) gave the executive branch broad authority to use military force against states or entities should it determine that they harbored those who aided or planned the September 11 attacks, and another AUMF was adopted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war. In May 2019, the administration revised its military plans for potential conflict with Iran, elevating concerns even further and prompting American Oversight to file a number of Freedom of Information Act requests for related legal analyses.
… The coronavirus pandemic and the Trump administration’s bungled response to it has turned significant attention away from the alarming increase in hostility between the U.S. and Iran, but
questions remain about whether the administration had been making preparations for further escalation — and whether its sidelining of Congress
reflects a contempt for Congress’s constitutionally delegated war powers. …”