Donald Trump, during the 2024 campaign, spoke often about wanting to avoid foreign military entanglements, while implying that first Joe Biden, and then Kamala Harris, would get the U.S. into new foreign wars.
Now, less than seven weeks before his inauguration, Trump appears to have threatened an invasion of the Middle East.
More than one hundred hostages remain in captivity, following the October 7 attack in 2023, and the subsequent war, and at least a few of them are American. The Biden-Harris Administration has fought for more than a year to encourage a deal to free those hostages, with little success. Now, in a Truth Social post, the incoming president has promised there will be “hell to pay,” should the hostages not be released before his inauguration on January 20.
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“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East,” Trump said in the post. “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.”
Trump appears to be threatening military action against the leaders of Hamas, who are holding most of the hostages, although that’s exactly what Israel has been doing for more than a year. He is also likely seeking to put pressure on Hamas to release the hostages and avoid that, in order to create a scene much like the one in 1981, when the American hostages were released from Iran during Ronald Reagan’s inauguration.
Some historians say Reagan’s camp actively sought to prevent a hostage deal from being reached prior to the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, something that may have been echoed in the present moment.
Someone tell Trump that Israel already unleashed hell on Gaza, and hostages were not released pic.twitter.com/frSASqLu7E
— Dr Andreas Krieg (@andreas_krieg) December 2, 2024
The question will be, what if Trump’s threats don’t work, and the hostages remain in captivity when he takes office? Will he be willing to, say, attack the countries — including U.S. ally Qatar – that have been shielding members of Hamas? Or even Iran? And will he risk a lengthy military entanglement in the Middle East, right at the start of his term, after specifically campaigning not to do so?
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
