Trump’s Latest Truth Social Distortions of Fact on Iran
Denounces his predecessors as weak and feckless.
In yet another of his rambling Truth Social posts, Donald Trump entertains a number of fantasies about Iran and two former presidents. The post is so inaccurate and misleading that it deserves to be corrected, not that facts and reality will sway loyal MAGA followers.
Trump begins:
Iran has been playing games with the United States, and the rest of the World, for 47 years (DELAY, DELAY, DELAY!), and then finally hit “pay dirt” when Barack Hussein Obama became President.
Trump and MAGA often claim Iran has attacked the United States for nearly five decades. It is using this claim as a predicate for the latest military strikes on Iran. From the occupation of the US embassy in Tehran to Iranian involvement in the Iraq war and occupation, the Trump administration alleges Iran has been at war with the US for decades.
The November 4, 1979 “Iran hostage crisis.” Initially, the storming and occupation of the embassy was a response to the US allowing Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to enter the United States to receive treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Prior to the occupation, the Tehran embassy had CIA officers working under diplomatic cover. The embassy files seized by the students include CIA cables and other classified materials, including information on covert contacts, exfiltration-related activity, operational intelligence reporting on military and political matters.
“One of the most important of these is the sensitive relationship between our regular diplomats—career officers of the Foreign Service—and the intelligence bureaucracies, primarily the CIA,” notes the Alicia Patterson Foundation. The “Captured Documents,” tediously reassembled after paper shredding, reveal how the CIA was anxious to rebuild its network of local agents, many of which had been destroyed during the Islamic revolution.
For obvious reasons, the Iranian people were opposed to the presence of the CIA in the country. In 1953, the CIA and British intelligence initiated the Operation Ajax coup after democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh nationalized Iran’s oil in response to foreign exploitation and control over its oil resources.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was installed as dictator. His government employed oppressive measures against political dissent. In 1957, the SAVAK secret police (Sâzemân-e Ettelâ’ât va Amniyat-e Kešvar, Organization of Intelligence and Security of the Nation), trained by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad, was organized under the Pahlavi dynasty. It conducted widespread surveillance, media censorship, and interrogations. SAVAK’s torture methods included “electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails.”
Following the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), Iran took steps to ensure Iraq would never invade Iran again. Hussein, fearing the Shia (the majority of the Iraqi population) would follow the lead of Iran’s Islamic revolution and overthrow his government, initiated the war on September 22, 1980.
After the US invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iran sought to ensure that Iraq remained neutral and did not align with the US, thereby becoming a base for anti-Iranian activities. Iran fostered Shia political parties and militias that were either based in or closely linked to Iran, such as the Badr Organization, Islamic Dawa, and various other groups. Led by figures like Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army, many Shia strongly resisted the occupation. During the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88), the Badr Organization was trained, armed, and funded by Iran.
The Mahdi Army (Jaish al‑Mahdi) received financial, logistical, and sometimes weapons support from Iran, particularly during the Iraqi resistance against the illegal US occupation. Iraqi so-called “special groups”—sa’ib Ahl al‑Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah, and Kata’ib al‑Imam Ali—splintered from the Mahdi Army and focused exclusively on asymmetric attacks against US occupation forces. The “special groups” would later become foundational within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/Hashd al‑Shabi).
For Trump, this self-preservation effort by Iran, and its desire to aid and support brother Shia under a occupation, is nothing short of terrorism. The claim of “mullah terrorists” aiding and abetting Iraqi terrorists, thus killing American occupation soldiers, is one of the cornerstones in the argument for attacking Iran, along with Iran’s phantom nuclear program and, until recently, the demand that it not only dismantle its self-defense posture (eliminating ballistic missiles), but also disassociate from Shia “proxies” in Iraq and Lebanon.
Trump’s remarks about Obama and Iran are characteristically hyperbolic. In the latter half of his administration, Obama tightened sanctions on Iran while also concluding a nuclear deal. Unlike Trump, Obama used traditional diplomacy to finalize the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump would later trash. The Obama administration maintained sanctions on issues such as ballistic missiles, terrorism, human rights abuses, while criticizing Iran’s role in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.
It should be noted that there were anti-Iran officials in the Obama administration, including former CIA Director David Petraeus, the State Department’s Vali Nasr, Dennis Ross, the former Special Assistant to President Obama, and Thomas Donilon, a national security advisor.
Sanctions imposed by the Obama administration seriously impaired Iran’s economy. The sanctions reduced oil exports and effectuated a contraction of the nation’s economy (growing at 3.8% in 2011, contracted by 6.6% in 2012, and 1.9% in 2013). A revenue loss, estimated at $100 billion, prevented development of the Iranian energy industry.
Additionally, the US blocked assets of the Iranian government and financial institutions within US jurisdiction. This effectively cut Iran off from the international financial market, making legal trade for humanitarian goods such as medicine difficult. This effectively severed Iran’s ties with the international financial market, rendering legal trade for humanitarian goods like medicine a challenge. Between 2011 and 2012, the Iranian Rial experienced a significant decline in value, losing nearly 38% of its worth. Weaponized inflation further exacerbated the situation, leading to a surge in the cost of essential goods, including food and medical supplies.
He was not only good to [Iran], he was great, actually going to their side, jettisoning Israel, and all other Allies, and giving Iran a major and very powerful new lease on life.
This statement is clearly incorrect. As previously mentioned, the Obama administration imposed significant sanctions on Iran, which led to a decline in its economy and living standards of it people, before the JCPOA was signed. In contrast, Trump’s sanctions, enacted through the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), are described as “maximum pressure.” The president’s first term strategy aimed to exert even greater economic pressure on Iran, sanctioning over 115 linked entities by 2023 and warning third parties against engaging in business with Tehran. This approach differs from Obama’s more targeted and deal-oriented strategy.
Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and 1.7 Billion Dollars in green cash, flown into Tehran, was handed to them on a silver platter. Every Bank in D.C., Virginia, and Maryland was emptied out – It was so much money that when it arrived, the Iranian Thugs had no idea what to do with it. They had never seen money like this, and never will again. It was taken off the plane in suitcases and satchels, and the Iranians couldn’t believe their luck.
Trump attempts to portray this as a handout, when it was nothing of the sort. In 1979, when Trump said Iran began its war against America following the Islamic Revolution, President Jimmy Carter froze $1.7 billion in Iranian assets. $400 million of this sum was military equipment purchased under the Shah and not delivered after the Iranian revolution. The money was “placed in an escrow account” where it accrued interest. The hardware was resold.
In January 2016, the $1.7 billion settlement was reached. The settlement involved a cash payment of $400 million—in euros or Swiss francs, delivered via airlift—and an interest amount of $1.3 billion, marking a pivotal moment during JCPOA Implementation Day.
They finally found the greatest SUCKER of them all, in the form of a weak and stupid American President. He was a disaster as our “Leader,” but not as bad as Sleepy Joe Biden!
Once again, Trump mischaracterizes reality. The Biden administration continued and added to the sanctions placed on Iran, specifically targeting its missile programs, oil exports, its alleged human rights abuses, and support to Hezbollah and Hamas. Trump, always the maximalist, views the Biden administration’s attempts at confidence building, while maintaining sanctions, as weakness. Trump also resents Biden for his attempts to revive the 2016 JCPOA.
For 47 years the Iranians have been “tapping” us along, keeping us waiting, killing our people with their roadside bombs, destroying protests, and recently wiping out 42,000 innocent, unarmed protestors, and laughing at our now GREAT AGAIN Country. They will be laughing no longer!
As noted, the deaths in Iraq during the height of the occupation were the work of Shia resistance groups supported by Iran, in much the same way the US armed and supported a number of armed groups, most notably the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989) and also the Contras (1987) against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.
It is nothing short of rank hypocrisy to argue that Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism when the United States has a far more extensive record of supporting terror. Iran’s support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Ansar Allah is directed against Israel in response to decades of threats from the Zionist state—primarily about a nuclear weapon it does not possess—backed up by the United States. Israel has attempted since its inception in 1948 to subvert, sabotage, and undermine its Arab neighbors, and since the Islamic Revolution, it has dedicated significant resources to destroying the Persian nation of Iran.
https://anotherdayintheempire.substack.com/p/trumps-latest-truth-social-distortions