New book claims: Trump was concerned Iran would assassinate him over Soleimani’s death

(A7)Then-US President Donald Trump told friends in December of 2020 he was afraid Iran would try to assassinate him in revenge for the death of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, a new book reveals.

The Guardian on Wednesday published excerpts of the book, written by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, a husband-and-wife team who write for the New York Times and the New Yorker. The book, titled “The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021”, will be published in the US next week.

In the book, Baker and Glasser chart Trump’s Iran policy, from reluctant talks over the nuclear deal signed under President Barack Obama to the US withdrawal in May 2018 and the point in June 2019 when Trump agreed to air strikes but called them off at the last minute.

Trump said at the time, “I thought about it for a second and I said, ‘You know what, they shot down an unmanned drone … and here we are sitting with 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within a half an hour after I said go ahead.’ And I didn’t like it … I didn’t think it was proportionate.”

Six months later, Trump did authorize the strike on Soleimani, the commander of the elite Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The air strike occurred on January 3, 2020, as he left Baghdad airport.

The Pentagon said Soleimani had been “actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region”.

Glasser and Baker write that while Trump bragged about the strike after he authorized it, he was not quite so bullish about it less than a year later.

They write that Trump and his advisers considered new strikes but backed off because the end of Trump’s time in power was too near.

The authors also write, “At a cocktail party, Trump told several of his Florida friends he was afraid Iran would try to assassinate him, so he had to go back to Washington where he would be safer.”

Trump duly returned to Washington, where, Baker and Glasser write, he swiftly “turned up the heat on Mike Pence”, his Vice President who he was pressuring to block electoral college results confirming Trump’s election defeat by Joe Biden.

Iran has repeatedly vowed to avenge the death of Soleimani. Earlier this year, an animated video published on the website of Khamenei depicted the assassination of Trump.

Iran in 2020 issued an arrest warrant against Trump and asked for Interpol’s aid in detaining him in the killing of Soleimani.

Interpol swiftly rejected the request, saying its guidelines for notices forbids it from “any intervention or activities of a political” nature.

At the start of January, Iran announced it seeks to prosecute 127 suspects, who were not named, for involvement and cooperation in the elimination of Soleimani.

Days later, the Islamic Republic imposed sanctions on dozens of Americans, many of them from the US military, over the 2020 killing of Soleimani.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan later warned that Iran will face severe consequences if it attacks Americans, including any of those it sanctioned.