President Donald Trump shocked the world on Friday when he threatened to attack Iran’s regime if it sends its goons to fire on demonstrators who have filled streets across the country over the past week.
“If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” the president posted on Truth Social. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
The threat might prompt more than a little whiplash for anyone who’s followed recent Trump administration statements on foreign policy. An intervention in Iran would clash with the spirit of the National Security Strategy the administration released last month, which dismissed past U.S. efforts to challenge Middle Eastern governments as a “misguided experiment” and chided past presidents for trying to force countries in the region into “abandoning their traditions and historic forms of government.” The Strategy mentions Iran only three times: once to credit Trump with brokering a ceasefire to end the 12-day war in June, and twice more to proclaim that the Islamic Republic is considerably weaker as a result of Israel’s and America’s bombing of the country’s nuclear and defense architecture.
