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Today, Trump and his allies are increasingly touting another type of alternate reality. That’s because Americans won’t oust him from office in 2020, from inflation to the war in Ukraine to the war in Gaza.
But they are starting to go too far.
President Trump said this weekend that Iran attacked Israel in an unprecedented air raid, saying, “If we were president, none of this would have happened.” “You know it, they know it, everyone knows it.”
“This attack on Israel would never have happened in the era of President Trump,” reiterated Rep. Elise Stefanik (RN.Y.).
“These attacks on Israel would never have happened under President @realDonaldTrump,” added Republican Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake.
“This never happened under the Trump administration,” said Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas). He, like the other two candidates, has been mentioned as a running mate for President Trump. “Please tell me I’m wrong.”
The advantage of this strategy is clear, as there is literally no way to prove Hunt wrong. It is unfalsifiable. And Americans appear to be at least somewhat inclined to support this notion, judging by today’s better real-time ratings of Trump’s presidency than ever before. They trust President Trump more than President Biden on foreign policy, national security, and inflation.
But rather than just parroting unfalsifiable claims, it’s worth putting them in context. And trying to apply that argument to Iran undermines the argument.
It is true that President Trump’s term saw no war in Gaza. But we have repeatedly seen tensions between Israel and Iran threaten to boil over. That’s not all. We’ve seen Iran become emboldened to attack not just Israel but actual Americans.
On January 3, 2020, a US missile strike authorized by President Trump killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and the U.S. government announced that Maj. Gen. Soleimani was planning an attack on American personnel.
Days later, Iran counterattacked by attacking a U.S. military base in Iraq. One contractor suffered severe eye injuries and 110 soldiers suffered traumatic brain injuries during the evacuation.
The provocation that accompanied last week’s direct attack on Israel is notable. However, the actual cost of this attack (according to the Israel Defense Forces, 99 percent of the projectiles were intercepted and only one person was seriously injured) was miniscule compared to the 2020 attacks.
It is noteworthy that that 2020 attack was also directed directly at U.S. personnel, rather than at U.S. allies. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said Iran had warned him in advance that Americans were the target. (President Trump seemed to claim last year that he had warned Iran that it would also deliberately remove the bases, but Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler called that “ridiculous” and said most of the missiles actually missed the bases.) He pointed out that it was a hit.)
Iran’s attack on American personnel was also unprecedented, marking the first time in decades of U.S.-Iranian tensions that Iran had directly targeted U.S. positions in the Middle East.
Comparisons between the two events aside, this does not exactly suggest that Iran was intimidated by President Trump’s strength. Even if Washington believed that Iran’s retaliation for Soleimani’s killing would be limited (President Trump would later suggest as much to justify his own lack of retaliation), it was clear that Soleimani We concluded that they were preparing to attack us on Trump’s watch.
It’s also worth noting that all of this happened during Trump’s last full year in office, after he had plenty of time to take control of the country’s foreign policy. There were real fears that the events of January 2020 could lead not only to Iran’s involvement in Middle East wars, but also to war between Iran and the United States.
That didn’t happen. But at least one Trump aide who was present in the months leading up to the conflict with Iran in early 2020 insists his claims are nonsense.
“I just think Mr. Trump is delusional on this point,” former national security adviser John Bolton told CNN on Sunday. “That’s a point that no one can refute or confirm. He has no idea what to do in the Middle East in this situation.”
For now, this seems to be an issue Americans are skeptical about — at least when it comes to another war that President Trump claims he could have prevented: the Ukraine war. A Washington Post Schar School poll last month found that Americans, 51% to 34%, said Russian President Vladimir Putin would have invaded Ukraine even if Trump were still president. answered. Essentially only Trump supporters said they believed Putin would not do that (and about 1 in 5 said he still would).
Of course, Trump will keep saying this kind of thing and expect people to swallow it whole.
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