Hillary Clinton Trying To Start War With Iran, Wait Our Bad We Meant Donald Trump

Declaration Of War: The Really Short Form

Donald Trump, apparently catching up on Fox News after returning from another important golf trip to his Bedminster club in New Jersey, had himself a fine meltdown late last night, threatening Iran with all-caps "CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED," as a perfectly stable genius with the launch codes does. This could mean John Bolton will finally get that war with Iran he's always dreamed of, or maybe that in six months Trump will hold a summit with Iranian leaders that accomplishes nothing but lets Trump paint himself as a peacemaker.

Here's the "president's" tweet, aimed at Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, who'd better check his mentions or else:  

To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKE… https://t.co/xUdD66vfBW

— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1532316259.0 

Truly, a man with the best words. Trump's tantrum appeared to most Americans to have come out of absolutely nowhere, but Rouhani did say some stuff on Iranian TV yesterday, warning that if the US attempts to block Iranian oil exports, Iran might just turn around and block other Arabian Gulf nations' oil exports too. Instead of all-caps ranting, Rouhani went for bellicose metaphor: "Do not play with the lion's tail or else you will regret it." Rouhani also said, "Peace with Iran would be the mother of all peace and war with Iran would be the mother of all wars," although lots of American media have only been quoting the second half of that, and there's not a chance in hell Trump would have bothered with some useless source like an intelligence briefing before screaming back on the Twitters.

(Also, before anyone excitedly proclaims Trump a dumbass for threatening Iran with a tweet when Iran has blocked Twitter since the 2009 election, hurr hurr. That only applies to regular Iranians -- members of the Iranian leadership, including Rouhani, have active accounts, as your hypocritical authoritarians do. On the off chance Rouhani isn't scrolling through his mentions like a teenager, we bet it's remotely possible his intelligence service reads the New York Times website. Trump is, of course a dumbass anyway.)

Al-Jazeera notes Rouhani has suggested that Iran may try to interrupt shipments of oil and gas from US trading partners in the region if the US attempts to block Iranian oil exports. In May, Trump, in a genius move, pulled out of the nuclear treaty agreed to by the US, Iran, and several European nations, because Barack Obama negotiated it. Trump plans to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran in November to punish it for complying with a bad treaty Obama was responsible for.

Earlier this month, Rouhani hinted Iran would take action if its exports through the Straits of Hormuz were cut off. The waterway, which comes to a narrow passage between Iran and Oman, is a key shipping route for several other Gulf countries as well.

"Is it possible that everyone in the region sells their oil and we stand idly by and watch?" Rouhani said.

"Do not forget that we have maintained the security of this waterway [Strait of Hormuz] throughout history. We have historically secured the route of oil transit. Do not forget it," he added. has vowed to reimpose sanctions on Iran to punish it for complying with the nuclear treaty signed

Mind you, this is just context for the sake of You, Our Gentle Readers -- we aren't saying Trump knows or cares about any of it. Just that it's kind of a thing that's always been part of Iran's strategic thinking.

It's probably more relevant that Trump's national security adviser is John Bolton, and the one thing John Bolton loves more than any other thing is the idea of a nice war with Iran, which Bolton is convinced would be easy-peasy. With Bolton pushing Trump for a hot war, the prospects of a meaningless "peace agreement" photo op like the one with North Korea seem less likely, however good a joke they make on Twitter. And as Bloomberg reporter Sahil Kapur points out, Trump has already provided us with this insight into how he thinks presidents work: To boost your own electoral chances, start a war.

Trump has repeatedly depicted war with Iran an something a president would do for domestic political gain. Here ar… https: //t.co/hatGFTolN0

— Sahil Kapur (@Sahil Kapur) 1532317356.0 

How about that -- the ironically significant tweets are floating around even before Trump takes any action.

Then there's Bolton, who proposes attacking Iran in response to literally anything happening in the Middle East . As recently as March of this year, Bolton fantasized in a Wall Street Journal op-ed about toppling the Iranian government before the 40th anniversary of the 1979 revolution so America can "reverse the shame" of the hostage crisis, and he's never given any indication that he sees any particular risk in going to war to do that. It's not like any American plans for war in the Middle East have ever gone wildly different from the initial plans, have they?

Some awesome video of cruise missiles being fired sure would take everybody's minds off Vladimir Putin visiting the White House this fall, that's for sure.

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[ CNN / NYT / Al Jazeera / WSJ (if paywalled, try this Twitter link )]