Cleaning my desktop, a Gem
Foreign news sources reports President Trump as saying:
Iraq should brace itself for sanctions that'll make the ones placed on Iran look pale in comparison if it kicks out the US troops without first covering the costs the US spent on its airbase there, US President Donald Trump said.
“We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build, long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it,"
Trump told reporters on board of the Air Force One on Sunday. The punitive measures that the US is ready to slap on its supposed ally in the fight against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) will be even harsher than the crippling sanctions already in effect against Tehran, the US leader said.
"If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”
Trump’s dire warning to Iraq comes after Iraqi MPs passed a resolution, championed by the country’s caretaker prime minister, and asking the Iraqi government to expel foreign troops by cancelling a request for military assistance from the US-led coalition. ============
Nader Hashemi, the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver told Al Jazeera Trump's comments were "borderline insane" and a cause for concern.
"This is someone who is completely surrounded by war hawks, is driven by his ego and is in a re-election campaign," Hashemi said. "I think he's calculating that this type of tough rhetoric plays well with his domestic base."
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