Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar’s assertion that President Trump is waging unjust “economic warfare” against Iran served as fuel for her critics, who were quick to point out her support for sanctions on other countries in the Middle East.
“This makes no sense. Sanctions are economic warfare,” the Minnesota Democrat said Wednesday following Trump’s address to the nation on Iran. “They have already caused medical shortages and countless deaths in Iran. You cannot claim to want deescalation and then announce new sanctions with no clear goal. This is not a measured response!”
This makes no sense. Sanctions are economic warfare.
They have already caused medical shortages and countless deaths in Iran.
You cannot claim to want deescalation and then announce new sanctions with no clear goal. This is not a measured response! https://t.co/sGWtwXuNDT
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 8, 2020
She was responding to Trump’s announcement that he will not seek to escalate the international conflict with Iran following the country’s attack on a pair of U.S.-Iraqi airbases in Iraq. He did, however, promise to introduce new “punishing” sanctions against the world’s “largest state sponsor of terror.”
“For far too long, all the way back to 1979, to be exact, nations have tolerated Iran’s destructive and destabilizing behavior in the Middle East and beyond,” Trump said. “Those days are over.”
Omar, in turn, accused Trump of trying to get the United States involved in a war in the Middle East since he got elected and slammed the new sanctions.
“First he canceled our best shot at avoiding armed conflict: the Iran nuclear deal,” Omar said during a press conference later that day. “Then he announced crippling sanctions to starve the innocent people of Iran.”
Critics were quick to point out that Omar supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, which seeks to promote various forms of boycotts against the country, including sanctions, and suggested that her criticism of sanctions on Iran is hypocritical.
1. “Sanctions are economic warfare.”
2. Sanctions cause “medical shortages and countless deaths.”
3. “Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS [Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Israel] movement.” (Omar campaign, 2018) https://t.co/eIQGmhwUNy
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) January 8, 2020
If sanctions on Iran are “economic warfare,” doesn’t that mean the BDS campaign against Israel that Omar supports is “warfare” as well? https://t.co/XHJxngGq5l
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) January 8, 2020
Ilhan Omar. Whose side r u on. You sound like a traitor to America. While supporting its enemy Iran. U oppose sanctions on Enemy Iran but support BDS sanctions on ally Israel. It’s time for u to be thrown off of every House Committee esp Foreign Affairs. https://t.co/0gzpXusrL8
— Morton Klein (@MortonAKlein7) January 9, 2020
Trump has attacked Omar personally in the past, at one point suggesting she “go back” to the country from which she immigrated to earn a greater appreciation of so-called American values. Omar is a Somali refugee who came to America as a child before being elected to Congress in 2018.
