Soleimani was Iran’s most powerful military commander, but has been killed after the US launched a drone strike which hit the influential general and allies from Iran backed militia in Baghdad. US President Trump has celebrated his country’s blow to the Iranian regime by tweeting an image of the American flag. But while he revels in the success of the drone strike, it appears the US has carried out an act of violence against Iran that Mr Trump claimed Barack Obama would be responsible for.
On November 16, 2011, Mr Trump said in a video now being shared online that former President Obama would “start a war with Iran”.
In the clip being shared by NowThis, Trump said: “Our President [Obama] will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate.
“He is weak, and he is ineffective. We have a real problem in the White House, so I believe that he [Obama] will attack Iran sometime prior to the election.
“He thinks that is the only way he can get elected. Isn’t it pathetic?”
Trump’s strike on General Soleimani comes in the buildup to the US’ 2020 vote next November.
President Trump’s foreign policy over Iran has had very different consequences to Mr Obama’s tenure in the White House.
President Obama was in Washington when the US and Iran signed the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
As fears in the West grew over Iran’s nuclear weapons development, President Obama and other P5+1 allies secured concessions from Tehran in exchange for sanctions relief.
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The US President was even more animated in April 2018, when he warned while at a joint press conference with France President Emmanuel Macron, that Iran would “pay a price few countries have ever paid” should it threaten the US.
Since the deal was abandoned in 2018, Iran has begun accelerating its nuclear programme once more amid tightening sanctions by the US.
US-Iran relations have been further severed by Tehran’s attack on two Saudi oil plants in September, and now Washington’s killing of General Soleimani.