President Trump, there's something American citizens need you to understand about Iran

Donald Trump: real estate mogul, reality television star, President of the United States of America and now, humanitarian.

This morning the president announced that he called off an airstrike on Iran because he was told it would kill 150 people. This, after a US spy drone was shot down in Iranian waters, and after it was alleged that the Iranian government attacked two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week.

The United Nations Secretary General called for an official investigation, while Trump immediately took to his favorite social media platform to threaten the western Asian nation.

Even though the US and Iran haven’t had official diplomatic ties since the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, relations have become even more acrimonious since Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, which former president Barack Obama along with the permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and the US), Germany and the rest of the European Union managed to negotiate a year earlier.

Trump’s messaging on Iran has been aggressive lately, but it seems as though someone has finally been able to advise him that going to war with that country would be an incredibly bad idea. And, as the Iranian diplomat to the UN in New York said in a conversation with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, everyone would lose.

Thank God someone finally has the President’s ear because Trump doesn’t appear to fully understand the potential consequences of his belligerent public discourse with Iran — or with any other nation, for that matter.

Someone who, with a single tweet, can send a market spiraling is at the helm of our armed forces. That same person, lest we forget, can singlehandedly order the US military to launch a nuclear weapon with no one—I repeat no one—able stop him from doing so. President Trump has what Bruce Blair, a former nuclear missile launch officer, has referred to as “civilization-ending power”.

In order to launch a nuke, the president doesn’t have to get any type of authorization from his Secretary of Defense, the vice president, Congress or even the Supreme Court.

Let that sink in for a minute.

With Bolton and Pompeo warmongering in the background, Iran is abandoning its strategic patience and sending provocative messages to the US. We haven’t been this close to a potential nuclear armed conflict since the Cold War.

After leaving the Iran nuclear deal, Trump re-imposed some of the harshest sanctions ever issued in US history that cover everything from banking, to oil and energy sectors, making it harder for other countries to do business with Iran and having devastating consequences on everyday Iranian citizens.

While the Iranian government may be publicly asserting that it is merely defending itself, its actions in the past week send a different message. And, to some extent, it’s understandable. Iran may feel that it no longer has any other options. They came to the negotiating table and complied with their end of the bargain. The US pulled out of the deal, and has since made no attempt to come to another fair agreement.

Even Obama, with his terrible track record on international armed conflict and its human cost, saw the value in open diplomacy with Iran. That should tell you something.

If only someone could explain to Trump exactly why that matters — preferably while steering him away from the big red button.