The Big Tweet

      

     Many of you woke up last Monday only to find the internet flooded with what has now become a very well-known tweet from our President of the United States, Donald Trump.  While tweeting is nothing new to President Trump and Twitter's goal is to provide an environment where people can feel free to express themselves, there is concern that he may have pushed the limit and took tweeting to an all-time extreme.

     The following order of events basically outlines what transpired that gave rise to President Trump's explosive tweet on Sunday night, July 22, 2018:

• May 8, 2018: President Trump signed a presidential memorandum which allowed the United States to pull out of a nuclear deal that the United States and several other countries had made with Iran during President Obama's administration in 2015. President Trump gave several warnings prior to this date that the deal either had to be renegotiated or terminated, and since successful renegotiating did not happen he withdrew the United States from the deal causing  tensions between the two countries to grow even more. The deal was that Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities and even allow in international inspectors to make sure they were following the terms of the deal as agreed upon.  In return, as part of the deal, crippling economic sanctions on Iran would be lifted. President Trump, however, found fault with a sunset clause in the deal which makes restrictions on Iran to be only temporary so he pulled out of the deal saying that due to its "decaying and rotten structure....the Iran deal is defective at its core".  As a result of withdrawing from the deal, sanctions on Iran are expected to be put back in place starting as early as August 6, 2018.
• July 21, 2018: Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Iranian diplomats in Tehran, the capital of Iran, that "we cannot trust in the words of the United States and even in their signature, so negotiations with the United States are useless".
• July 22, 2018: Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, gave a televised, extremely provocative speech against the United States warning the United States about being hostile toward Iran.  
• July 22, 2018: Soon after Iranian President Rouhani gave his speech, Mike Pompeo, the United States Secretary, gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. His speech spoke poorly about the Iranian government. The Iranian regime was compared to the mafia whereby leaders of the country are known to get rich and fund terrorism all at the expense of Iranian citizens. He also stressed that corruption among the leaders of Iran is to be blamed not only for the suffering the people of Iran are facing but also for their lack of political freedom.
• July 22, 2018: Later that night, President Trump returned to the White House from a weekend trip and learned about the televised speech given by President Rouhani. President Rouhani's words used in his speech infuriated Trump so he immediately took to Twitter at 11:24 p.m. and tweeted to President Rouhani what is now known as his threatening, all-caps tweet as seen below: 

There has been mixed reaction to President Trump's tweet. While some shrug it off as Donald Trump just being his impulsive self, others perceive it as a serious threat of a nuclear attack by the United States on Iran.

Below are articles and videos which will shed more light on the situation from when President Trump withdrew from the Iran deal in May 2018, several reactions to it then and now, including some of  Iranian President Rouhani's words which led up to President Trump's recent tweet as well as other related articles.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/08/here-are-iran-sanctions-returning-after-trump-leaves-nuclear-deal.html

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/22/world/iran-rouhani-mother-wars/index.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-trump-iranian-president-threats-20180722-story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-latest-iranian-state-media-say-trumps-tweet-passive/2018/07/23/d486e22e-8e43-11e8-ae59-01880eac5f1d_story.html?utm_term=.13ecd95a3186

Additional interesting links:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/cheat-sheet-executive-orders-memorandums-proclamations
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/node/328996
http://www.personalitypathways.com/article/trump-mbti-type.html

Discussion Questions:
1. Do you feel the use of Twitter is a proper way for Presidents of different countries and people in politics to communicate with each other?
2. Do you feel President Trump's tweet was made on impulse or was it well thought out by him?
3. Does President Trump's tweet appear to be a threat of a nuclear attack by the United States on Iran?
4.  Can the "war on words" between Iran and the United States end up hurting other countries, too?