IRONY: Donald Trump speaks on Barack Obama's 2012 Reelection

President Donald Trump has approved a military strike that resulted in the assassination of Major General Qassem Suleimani, one of the most powerful people in Iran. This move has been deemed by many experts as an "act of war" and has increased the likelihood of conflict between the United States and Iran this year.

Trump justified the assassination on Twitter, stating that Suleimani was plotting to kill Americans. However, during President Barack Obama's tenure, Trump took a different stance and predicted that Obama would start a war with Iran to boost his political support. Trump's predictions turned out to be false, and the Obama administration's diplomacy resulted in the multilateral Iran nuclear deal.

Since becoming president, Trump has gone down a different path, unilaterally withdrawing the US from the nuclear deal, implementing a "maximum pressure" campaign aimed at crippling Iran's economy, and assassinating the head of the country's paramilitary forces.

Trump's attacks on his political foes are often projections. For instance, he has accused former Vice President Joe Biden of corruption despite facing allegations of his own.

Tensions with Iran escalated before Suleimani's assassination, and Trump's decision to approve the drone strike may have been based on intelligence about an upcoming attack against Americans or American interests. However, if Trump's comments about the political expediency of starting a war in an election year represent another instance of his tendency to project his own shortcomings on others, then American foreign policy has entered a dangerous new phase.

Given that Trump campaigned on bringing American troops home and warned against starting a war with Iran in an election year, it would be reasonable to assume that he would be cautious about doing so.