Citizen Trump repeatedly warned that Obama would start war with Iran for better polls

Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…

In 2012-13, Donald Trump repeatedly signaled his cynical belief that starting a war with Iran was a smart strategy available to President Obama to raise his poll numbers and reelection chances.

 

 

On one hand that’s in the rear-view mirror and perhaps not worth belaboring, but I’m not pointing to it as an example of hypocrisy. I’m pointing to it because it jibes with everything else we know about Trump heedlessly lurching from crises of his own making without a plan except for his bile, self-interest, and dated, mistaken assumptions about how the world works.

His belief that Obama could solve his domestic political problems by starting a war with Iran (in hindsight incorrectly, as Obama got reelected and remained popular) is illustrative of Trump’s idea bankruptcy and propensity toward projection. Historically, going to war has boosted a president’s poll numbers and Trump’s tweets about Obama reflect that assumption.

Debates will ensue about the relevant facts and dissections of the Iran and Iraq conflict and larger region history, and that’s all important, but the reason this got to this point is almost certainly because Trump believes, as he has evidently long believed, that he can resolve his own domestic political crisis by starting a war with Iran.