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In remarks on Wednesday, President Donald Trump extended condolences to Lebanon for the explosion that rocked Beirut on Tuesday. During the remarks, he referred to the explosion as “terrible attack,” which swiftly drew international attention.
Lebanese diplomats began reaching out to Trump for immediate clarification. Did he know something they didn’t? Was the president given a top-secret briefing that he inadvertently spilled on-air?
Or, did he misspeak, perhaps, as he is known to do? Some wondered if, perhaps, Trump simply chose the wrong words. However, his misstep of speech was quick to draw the attention of the international diplomatic community.
Lebanese diplomats were quick to scramble for clarification over the remarks. Lebanon is in a precarious position, currently. The country’s economy is currently in shambles, and partisan tensions are at an all-time high. The Middle East is a tense area in the best of times, and the pandemic has hardly been the best of times.
The explosion almost couldn’t have come at a worse time. However, officially, it’s being treated as an accident. A fire in a warehouse is said to have sparked the explosion, which was driven by ammonium nitrate fertilizer. While this may sound far-fetched, it’s actually plausible: such an explosion rocked Texas City in 1947.
The explosion being caused by improperly stored ammonium nitrate doesn’t necessarily mean it was an accident, however. An attack could have theoretically been carried out by a malicious actor: simply setting a fire in the warehouse could have been enough to cause the damage.
That is, of course, if the malicious actor in question was already familiar with the situation in the warehouse. The ammonium nitrate would have needed to be stored in a very improper manner to create the kind of explosion seen in Beirut.
As such, Donald Trump’s statement that the explosion was an attack quickly caught the attention of Lebanese officials. If the president knows something they don’t, of course, they’d like that information. Lebanon’s current situation is incredibly tense, and the country could devolve into partisan in-fighting with little provocation.
Some in the US and abroad were alarmed by the idea of the president, inadvertently or otherwise, kicking off an armed conflict in the region. Trump has shown himself shrewd in matters of international warfare: he has scaled back on US military presence in the Middle East, for instance. However, he needs to remember to speak carefully, especially when addressing the Middle East.
