Thread by @MesMitch

Impeachment: Warren accuses Trump of 'wag the dog' strike on Suleimani
Democratic presidential candidate says US on ‘edge of war’
Anti-Isis coalition suspended as Iraqi MPs vote to expel US

Elizabeth Warren has suggested Donald Trump ordered the drone assassination of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani to distract the American public from his looming impeachment trial, thereby taking the country “to the edge of war” for his own political purposes.

“We know Donald Trump is very upset about this upcoming impeachment trial,” the Massachusetts senator and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “But look what he’s doing now. He is taking us to the edge of war.”

Observers were quick to say Warren was accusing Trump of “wag the dog” tactics, meaning an attempt to distract public attention from an issue of great importance by launching a military strike.

A 1997 film satire starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman used the phrase as its title and similar charges were levelled against Bill Clinton in 1998, when he ordered strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan while embroiled in the scandal which led to his own impeachment.

Trump ordered the strike against Suleimani, which happened in Baghdad on Friday. It followed a rocket strike in Iraq that killed an American contractor and wounded US troops, US airstrikes in response and a siege of the US embassy in Baghdad by Iranian-backed militias.

On Sunday Iran called Trump a “terrorist in a suit” and told US media outlets retaliation would be carried out against US military targets.

Asked about the Suleimani strike, Warren said: “I think that people are asking why this moment?”

In Washington, House speaker Nancy Pelosi is withholding articles of impeachment from the Senate, in the hope of forcing concessions from its Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, over the form of Trump’s trial in the upper chamber.

McConnell has said Trump will not be convicted and removed and said he is co-ordinating closely with the White House.

Pelosi’s decision to hold the articles of impeachment means Trump remains in constitutional limbo, the third president to be impeached but not yet the third to be acquitted.

The articles of impeachment concern abuse of power, in the withholding of military aid from Ukraine amid pressure for that country to investigate Trump’s political foes, and obstruction of Congress.

Warren said: “The administration can’t keep its story straight and in the case of Ukraine, it was all about protecting 🍊 Trump’s skin. We know that Donald Trump was very upset about this upcoming impeachment trial, but look what he’s doing now. He is taking us to the edge of war

“We’ve been at war for 20 years in the Middle East and now, he’s talking about expanding that war. This has been something that has cost thousands of American lives. It has cost us enormously in many ways both at home and around the world and at the same time,

look what it’s done to the Middle East – millions of people who’ve been killed, who’ve been injured, who’ve been displaced.

“The job of the president is to keep us safer. The job of the president is not to move us to the edge of war.”

Trump vows to hit 52 sites 'very hard' if Iran retaliates over Suleimani killing
As general’s body is returned to Iran, president says targets represent the 52 US hostages taken by Iran in 1979

Donald Trump has threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites “very hard” if Iran attacks Americans or US assets in retaliation for the drone strike that killed the Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani and an Iraqi militia leader.

The US president made the threat in a tweet hours before Suleimani’s body arrived in Iran for burial and ramifications of the killings were reverberating across a nervous region, where many believe the aftermath could spark a new era of bloodletting and instability.

Iranian state television footage showed a tide of mourners packing the streets of the south-west city of Ahvaz early on Sunday to pay their respects and chanting “death to America”.

Huge crowds had joined funeral processions in Baghdad and Tehran on Saturday as calls to avenge the Iranian general’s death mounted and the US case for ordering his assassination was increasingly called into question.

Trump tweeted that Iran “is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets” in response to Suleimani’s death. He said the US had

“targeted 52 Iranian sites” and that some were “at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD”.

“The USA wants no more threats!” Trump said, adding that the 52 targets represented the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days after being seized at the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979.

Trump did not identify the sites. The Pentagon referred questions about the matter to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said Trump’s threats breached international law. “Having committed grave breaches of int’l law in Friday’s cowardly assassinations, realdonaldtrump threatens to commit again new breaches,”

he tweeted. “Targeting cultural sites is a war crime; – Whether kicking or screaming, end of US malign presence in West Asia has begun.”

Iraq’s parliament is set to meet for an extraordinary session on Sunday where MPs have said they would push for a vote on a resolution requiring the government to request the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

“There is no need for the presence of American forces after defeating Daesh (Isis),” Ammar al-Shibli, a member of the parliamentary legal committee, told Reuters. “We have our own armed forces which are capable of protecting the country.”

Many Iraqis, including opponents of Suleimani, have expressed anger at the US for killing the two men on Iraqi soil and possibly dragging their country into another conflict.

The New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi tweeted that two sources privy to the information, held by US intelligence officials described the case as “razor thin”. Her tweets also detail a scramble 2discover Suleimani’s whereabouts once the decision to kill him was made.

The White House transmitted on Saturday evening its formal notification to Congress of Friday’s drone strike that killed Suleimani in Iraq. Many Democrats have criticized Trump for failing to seek advance approval or to notify Congress of the attack.

The classified notification was sent under a US law requiring the administration to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action or imminent actions.

Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, said in a statement that the White House notification about the attack “prompts serious and urgent questions about the timing, manner and justification of the administration’s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran”.

Meanwhile, Iran claimed that the US had sent a note to Tehran through the Swiss embassy, which acts as an intermediary between the two foes, calling for a “proportional response” to the killing of Suleimani.

“The Swiss, who represent US interests [in Iran], brought a very unwise message from the Americans, which received a firm response,” Zarif, said on TV. “The Americans made a wrong move and are now worried about its consequences.”

The deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brig Gen Ali Fadavi, said the US “resorted to such means as diplomacy this morning [Friday] and even told us ‘if you want to take revenge, do it in a way that’s proportional to what we did’”.

“But they cannot decide anything [for us],” Fadavi added, according to the Iranian English-language news site Iran Front Page. “That will take place at the most opportune time and in the best manner possible.

“Soon we will see that the Americans will not be there in the region,” he said.