The president’s fatal ignorance could result in a conflict much bigger than any convenient crisis manufactured for the midterms

Despite the giggles that greeted Donald Trump at the UN this week, the threats and insults he hurled at Iran are no laughing matter. The US president is pursuing a deliberate, premeditated and high-risk campaign to provoke, intimidate and ultimately overthrow the Tehran regime.

His verbal assaults are matched by damaging US sanctions that hurt ordinary Iranians and will culminate in November with a global embargo on Iran’s crucial oil exports. At that point, Iran’s hardliners, more or less restrained until now by President Hassan Rouhani, may take matters into their own hands. The dire prospect of direct armed confrontation in the Gulf is increasing by the day.

Imagine the danger if, when the US embargoes Iranian oil, it blocks the Strait of Hormuz, as it has threatened to do

Related: EU, China and Russia in move to sidestep US sanctions on Iran

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Source: iran
Link : Trump is risking more than a war of words with Iran | Simon Tisdall