A decade-old clip of Hillary Clinton is being used to draw a false equivalency between President Donald Trump’s recent escalation with Iran and Clinton's ideas at the time.
Trump ordered a drone strike that killed top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani last week, prompting Iran to retaliate with missile strikes targeting two Iraqi airbases that house US troops.
The rising tensions prompted some Clinton supporters to make the hashtag #IVotedForHillaryClinton trend in the United States.
Clinton critics responded by sharing a clip of an interview Clinton gave in 2008.
“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton says in the clip.
“In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them,” she said.
“That’s a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic,” she added.
But the circumstances were very different:
The remarks came under criticism at the time from Clinton’s opponents like Barack Obama but they have little to do with the situation at hand now.
Clinton was referring to a potential response to Iran potentially launching a nuclear attack on Israel, which would be a colossal escalation that would likely prompt a response from many other nations. Trump’s attack on Soleimani, on the other hand, came after a US contractor was among those killed in a strike on an Iraqi base.
Clinton’s comments also came before Obama negotiated and signed the Iran nuclear deal, which would have prevented a scenario like the one Clinton described in the clip. But Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, which many analysts say is the cause of his problems now.
Iran has since said they will not honor the deal following last week’s strike.
Biden says Trump caused tension by pulling out of deal:
"When the Iran deal was in force, we didn't have this dangerous cycle of tit for tat escalation and response," former Vice President Joe Biden said in a speech Tuesday. "There was a united front of allies and partners to address Iran's other destabilizing actions throughout the region."
"The Iran deal was not only accomplishing a critical mission that it was designed for, it also created an environment in which diplomacy was possible. But Trump—he walked away. Not Iran. Trump walked away," Biden said. "Since then, all that has materialized is a predictable cycle of escalating conflict with Iran."
Trump on Wednesday criticized the Iran nuclear deal as “very defective” before calling for negotiations between the US and Iran "toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer, and more peaceful place.”
