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In an interview with The Times of London President-elect Donald Trump addressed the situation in the Middle East.
Trump was asked by Michael Gove and Kai Diekmann what he thought about the situation in Iraq where the U. S.-backed Iraqi army together with Iranian-backed Shiite militias are having trouble re-conquering Mosul, Iraq\u2019s second-largest city that has been under the control of the Islamic State since late 2014.
Trump called the situation in Mosul \u201ca disaster\u201d and blamed the lack of progress since the offensive against the Islamic State began in the middle of October on Obama officials who announced the offensive against ISIS in Mosul four months before it actually started.
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When asked how he would handle the war against ISIS in Iraq Trump answered:
\u201cWhy do you have to announce it?\u201d Trump added.
\u201cWhat\u2019s going to be your priority? When are you going to attack? When are you gonna, how are you gonna do it? What kind of weapons are you gonna use, right? What time of the day?\u201d the President-elect continued.
By the time the coalition against ISIS got into Mosul it had become very hard to retake the city Trump said.
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Trump also addressed the situation in Syria and said Putin\u2019s intervention in the country in September 2015 was \u201ca very bad thing.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s a very bad thing, we had a chance to do something when we had the line in the sand and it wasn\u2019t \u2014 nothing happened,\u201d Trump told The Times, referencing Obama\u2019s failure to enforce his own red line of using force against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad after he used chemical weapons against civilians.
\u201cThat was the only time \u2014 and now, it\u2019s sort of very late. It\u2019s too late. Now everything is over \u2014 at some point it will come to an end,\u201d Trump claimed before addressing the fall of Aleppo last month.
\u201cAleppo was nasty. I mean when you see them shooting old ladies walking out of town \u2014 they can\u2019t even walk and they\u2019re shooting them \u2014 it almost looks like they\u2019re shooting them for sport \u2014 ah no, that\u2019s a terrible \u2014 that\u2019s been a terrible situation. Aleppo has been such a terrible humanitarian situation,\u201d the incoming president said.
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Trump then told The Times reporters that he hasn\u2019t changed his mind about the nuclear agreement with Iran but refused to elaborate on what he intends to do about it after his inauguration coming Friday.
\u201c I don\u2019t want to say what I\u2019m gonna do with the Iran deal. I just don\u2019t want to play the cards. I mean, look, I\u2019m not a politician, I don\u2019t go out and say, \u2018I\u2019m gonna do this \u2014 I\u2019m gonna do \u2014\u2019, I gotta do what I gotta do. But I don\u2019t wanna play,\u201d Trump said before he branded the nuclear agreement \u201cone of the dumbest deals\u201d ever seen.
\u201cI\u2019m not happy with the Iran deal, I think it\u2019s one of the worst deals ever made, I think it\u2019s one of the dumbest deals I\u2019ve ever seen, one of the dumbest, in terms of a deal. Where you give \u2014 where you give a $150 billion back to a country, where you give $1.7 billion in cash \u2014 did you ever see a million dollars in hundred dollar bills? It\u2019s a lot. It\u2019s a whole \u2014 it\u2019s a lot,\u201d Trump said.
He added that the delivery of $1.7 billion in cash to Iran by the Obama administration showed \u201cthe power of a president\u201d.
\u201cWhen a president of this country can authorize $1.7 billion in cash, that\u2019s a lot of power,\u201d Trump said, while making clear he believes Iran has stashed the money in Swiss bank accounts and didn\u2019t spend it on terror-related activity.
Trump also harshly critized the order by outgoing President Obama not to use U. S. veto power during the vote on the latest anti-Israel resolution in the Security Council of the United Nations just before Christmas.
\u201c I think it was terrible. It should have been a veto. I think it was terrible,\u201d Trump said while adding that he thinks the United Kingdom should now veto any additional anti-Israel resolution in the UNSC until he will be in office.
\u201cI\u2019d like to see the UK veto. I think it\u2019d be great if they veto because I\u2019m not sure the United States is gonna veto, amazingly. They won\u2019t, right?\u201d Trump added.
Trump said that UNSC resolution 2334 \u2013 which condemned the so-called Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and blamed them for the lack of progress in the peace process with the Palestinian Arabs \u2013 will make it tougher to negotiate a peace deal in Israel because the Palestinian Arabs are receiving too much
\u201cEven though it\u2019s (the resolution) not legally binding it\u2019s psychologically binding and it makes it much tougher for me to negotiate. You understand that? Because people are giving away chips, they\u2019re giving away all these chips,\u201d Trump said.
The president-elect refused to comment on a question about the planned relocation of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
\u201cWell, I don\u2019t want to comment on that, again, but we\u2019ll see what happens,\u201d Trump told the Times.
The new president has appointed his Jewish son in law Jared Kushner as his envoy for brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.
Trump thinks Kushner will be the right man to achieve what no U. S. envoy was able to do: to end the hundred-year-old conflict in Israel.
\u201cHe knows the region, knows the people, knows the players,\u201d Trump said about Kushner last year.<\/p>\n