E-Paper
Will Soleimani, al-Baghdadi help Trump’s re-election bid?
The killing of the Iranian general who headed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force had elicited only a few tweets and retweets from the president thus far.
The killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was one of the key factors that propelled President Barack Obama to a second term in 2012. Will the killing of Iran’s Qasem Soleimani do the same for President Donald Trump, or the killing of Islamic State’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?
Trump himself has appeared less thrilled about Soleimani than he was of al-Baghdadi, which he had announced in an address to the nation from the White House with dramatic details of how the IS leader had died like “a dog (and) a coward .. whimpering, screaming and crying”.
The killing of the Iranian general who headed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force had elicited only a few tweets and retweets from the president thus far. His circumspection reflected concerns, perhaps, that an Iranian retaliatory strike, which appeared imminent, could easily turn it into his presidency’s biggest nightmare.
Trump’s al-Baghdadi announcement on October 27 was similar in Obama’s late-night broadcast about the SEALs raid that killed Bin Laden in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, in optics only, because the former president’s words were more measured and intended to not look celebratory, which was left to the cheering crowds outside the White House.
Obama experienced a bump in polls in the following days. Though it did not last long, the president made the SEALs raid one of the key elements of his re-election platform, as captured by then Vice-President Joe Biden in this slogan, “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive”. The second part referred to the Obama administration’s $80 billion package to help US auto makers GM, Ford and Chrysler survive the 2009 financial crisis.
President Obama was criticized for appropriating credit for the SEALs raid, which he had earlier described as the result of “teamwork”, for his election. But that did not stop him, and Trump is unlikely to be coy about it either. Al-Baghdadi is a part of his campaign speeches already and the first official word out about Soleimani reflected his intentions very clearly. “At the direction of the President, the US military has taken decisive defensive action to …,” the Pentagon said in a statement Thursday.
