Donald Trump on Thursday drew a controversial parallel between US military strikes on Iran and Pearl Harbor attack, during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Washington.
Speaking at the Oval Office, Trump defended the war against Tehran by invoking Japan’s surprise attack during World War Two.
“We wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Trump said when a journalist asked why he had not told allies about his war plans.
“You believe in surprise, I think much more so than us.”
Takaichi’s eyes widened and she shifted in her chair as Trump, seated beside her, referenced the moment that drew the US into global conflict.
The Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, killed 2,390 Americans and prompted Washington to declare war the following day.
Then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt described the घटना as “a date which will live in infamy.”
The war ended in August 1945 after US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and led to Japan’s surrender.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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