Trump’s dangerous obsession with Iran

The following article by Ishaan Tharoor was posted on the Washington Post website July 24, 2018:

Credit: Washington Post

In America’s fevered political landscape, supporters of President Trump often cast criticism of him as a symptom of a condition: “Trump derangement syndrome.” Trump’s opponents are so possessed by their contempt for him, the diagnosis goes, that they embrace positions and pursue policy goals they would never consider in any other context. Supposed examples of this include the newfound Russophobia among some American liberals and the knee-jerk rejection to Trump’s overtures to North Korea — signs of partisan tribalism supposedly displacing political logic.

But Trump and his lieutenants are guilty of their own derangement syndromes, most conspicuously when it comes to Iran. Even as Trump has gone out of his way to cozy up to an autocrat in Moscow, embraced human-rights-abusing Arab monarchs and celebrated his friendliness with the world’s most isolated dictator, he sees in Tehran an implacable, irreconcilable enemy.

On Sunday night, the White House ratcheted up tensions with the Islamic republic. Trump issued a dramatic tweet, addressing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in all caps: “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.”

View the complete article here.