Turns out Donald Trump is even more afraid than we thought

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When Donald Trump assassinated Iranian leader Qasem Soleimani, Iran responded in the most careful way possible. It launched missiles into an empty portion of a U.S. occupied military base in Iran, making a big enough spectacle to look strong in the eyes of its own people, but making sure not to harm anyone so Trump wouldn’t have an excuse to go to war.

Now it turns out Iran’s plan didn’t exactly play out to script. The Pentagon is finally acknowledging that as a result of the Iranian missile attack, eleven U.S. soldiers were treated for concussion symptoms. In other words, Iran unwittingly handed Trump a thin excuse to go to war if he really wanted to – and Trump took a pass. Moreover, Trump is now going out of his way to downplay it.

When Trump spoke in Davos today, he asserted that the injuries to the U.S. soldiers were merely “headaches” and “not very serious.” This is the latest reminder of just how ignorant and lacking in compassion Trump is. But it also confirms something else. Trump is trying to play down these injuries because he’s trying to play down any pro-war sentiment that might emerge in the United States as a result of these injuries to U.S. soldiers.

In other words, Donald Trump is really, really, really afraid of war. The minute he saw that his conflict with Iran wasn’t going to boost his crappy approval rating, he bailed on it. As Palmer Report has pointed out for some time, Trump’s actions in office have consistently made clear that he’s more afraid of war than any modern president. It’s not that he’s opposed to war, like some presidents have been; he’s afraid of it. You’d have to ask him why. But America’s enemies can smell the fear on him. It’s part of why other nations are able to walk all over him.

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