On Saturday, just under two weeks into the protests that are now sweeping Iran, United States President Donald Trump took to his social media platform of choice to post a message of support: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”As usual, Trump’s random capitalisation scheme and excessive use of exclamation points would better befit an elementary schoolchild than the leader of the global superpower. But the promise of American help is also problematic in far more significant ways.For starters, “help” is not exactly a specialty of the US – and particularly not under the guidance of the man who bombed Iran just last summer, right after returning to power on a pledge to keep the US out of foreign wars.Trump is furthermore responsible for maintaining a crippling sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic, thereby fuelling the high inflation that triggered the present protests in the first place. As is par for the course in such forms of economic warfare, the nonelite of Iran have paid the highest price.In addition to constituting a departure from his whole “America First” premise, Trump’s recent offer of “help” to the Iranians marks a shift in presidential rhetoric vis-a-vis the much-maligned country. Previously, the Trumpian discourse mainly targeted Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles equipped with chemical and biological warheads – all of which were marketed as a …
