A University of Michigan professor lashed out at President Donald Trump on Wednesday during an anti-war protest on campus against his decision last week to target a top Iranian general who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops.
“We have a mad bomber in the White House,” Prof. Juan Cole said during the protest, which was entitled, “.”
“We have somebody who’s erratic,” he continued. “We have a secretary of defense who’s a lobbyist for the arms industry. We have a secretary of state who is a Kansas oilman.”
He noted further that the president, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are “making war” in the Middle East and against the “climate,” as well.
“The three of them together are making war on our climate and on the Middle East,” he said.
“The Trump Administration did not strike Iran for the first time this week. The Trump Administration has had Iran under the severest economic blockade in modern history,” Cole continued, expressing his dismay over the president having “put so many sanctions on Iran.”
“Trump has put a pillow over the baby of Iran and [unintelligible] to strangle the lives of people,” said Cole. “Iran was on the verge of being welcomed into the world community, it was going to buy Boeing jets.”
Cole then claimed, falsely, that the U.S. is at war with Iran now, adding that “[the United States] is trying to destroy people’s lives.” He want on to refer to the killing of Quds Force commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani as “an assassination.”
“We have a rogue government,” he said, in reference to the Trump administration.
During his tenure, President Barack Obama ordered the launch of more than 3,000 drone strikes in targeted killings throughout the Middle East and in Pakistan, where members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban were in hiding.
As for Soleimani, he was once listed as a terrorist enemy of the United States, but he was given “amnesty” by the Obama administration as part of the Iran nuclear deal.