Today In History: Trump Talks Iran Strategies At AIPAC; Carter Boycotts Moscow Summer Olympics

March 21, 2017, is the 79th day of the year, with 285 days remaining. The moon is in a waning gibbous phase, with illumination at 42 percent.

Donald Trump Addresses American Israel Public Affairs Committee

Following the cancellation of the Fox News-led GOP presidential primary debate, then-frontrunner Donald Trump addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, D.C., to discuss relations between the United States and Israel. Trump touched upon his being a newcomer to politics, but not a newcomer to “backing the Jewish state.” He spoke about his premier priority to dismantle the “disastrous deal with Iran,” referencing his knowledge of “deal-making” and promised constituents that, when elected president, he would adopt a strategy that focuses on three things in terms of the United States’ relationship with Iran, beginning with “[standing up] to Iran’s aggressive push to destabilize and dominate the region.”

Second, he said, he would “totally dismantle Iran’s global terror network,” describing this network as “big and powerful, but not powerful like [the United States].”

Third, Trump expressed a desire to hold Iran “totally accountable” by enforcing the terms of a previous engagement between the United States and Iran, which comprised limiting Iran’s nuclear program with enhanced monitoring. Time shared a full transcript of Trump’s remarks.

Jimmy Carter Boycotts Olympic Games In Moscow

The 1980 Olympic Games was set to take place in Moscow, but in light of the Soviet Union’s failure to comply with President Jimmy Carter’s Feb. 20 deadline to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the president decidedly announced that the United States would boycott the Olympic Games that would kick off that summer.

Soviet military had invaded Afghanistan in 1979 in order to reinforce the country’s communist regime against Islamic rebel forces, but in a statement following the invasion, Carter admonished the Soviet Union, specifically its then-leader Leonid Brezhnev. The invasion had threatened to revive the Cold War, and Carter stated that his opinion of the Russians had drastically changed since the beginning of his administration.

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