New York

President Donald Trump has been accused of "rape" by a journalist only a day after he pulled back on a decision to strike Iran.

Massive pressure has been building on the US President from neocons in his administration to attack Iran after a US Global Hawk drone was shot down over the Gulf of Oman. Open source intelligence from IntelCrab noted Unusual High Frequency (UHF) radio traffic pointing to American strike preparation.

Iran said the American drone was in Iranian airspace. The New York Times reported that Iran released GPS coordinates that put the drone inside the 12 nautical mile radius that Iran claims as its territorial waters.

According to Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, the drone ignored repeated radio warnings before it was downed. He informed the UN Security Council that Tehran “does not seek war” but “is determined to vigorously defend its land, sea and air”.

Trump elected not to carry out a strike on Thursday evening because he said an US response would not be “proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone”. The US President tried to row back from a confrontation by describing the incident as a “big mistake”.

The next day, on Friday, E Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her sometime “in late 1995 or early 1996” suggesting that the President has a small penis.

The writer alleges that the president attacked her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in New York and thrust “his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain”. New York no longer has any statue of limitations on first degree rape, which means she could pursue charges.

But when asked on MSNBC whether she would press charges against Trump, Carroll alleged that she would not because it would be “disrespectful” to the women at the border “who are being raped around the clock”.

President Trump denied the allegations in a statement. “I’ve never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book—that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section.”

Strangely, neither Carroll nor the New York Magazine could provide surveillance footage or reports from the many sales attendants working at the store. “I would like to thank Bergdorf Goodman for confirming they have no video footage of any such incident, because it never happened,” Trump added.

“False accusations diminish the severity of real assault. All should condemn false accusations and any actual assault in the strongest possible terms,” the President concluded.

It may be possible that the neocons have been working with Carroll to concoct the false accusations, since there is no question that powerful lobbies in Washington are very angry with Trump for not attacking Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also openly expressed his support for the escalating US campaign against Iran.

“Netanyahu, with the assistance of like-minded allies in the US and the Middle East, persuaded Donald Trump to abandon Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran,” according to Haaretz.

A guest on the Tucker Carlson Show on Fox News, retired army Colonel Douglas McGregor, confirmed the push by these lobbies.

“I think the president has figured this out. He’s got good instincts.. But he needs to get rid of the warmongers. He needs to throw these geniuses and their limited strikes out of the Oval Office. The last thing the America First agenda needs is a stupid pointless unnecessary war with Iran and he [Trump] knows that and he needs to act.

According to McGregor, a strike on Iran is not in the interest of the US. “It will ruin our economy if we engage Iran in a war. Iran will have instantly have support from around the world. They will be the victim of this ‘limited strike’ that is being discussed.

“The limited strike idea is sheer insanity. It will provoke a war. Everyone, China, Russia, India, many European states will come to the aid of Iran. We will end up with a larger coalition of the willing against us, than we have seen in decades.”

These conveniently timed “rape” allegations against Trump may be seen in this context.

The Wall Street Journal meanwhile reported on the current escalation of tensions in the Gulf. Senior US officials were called back to the White House after a desalination facility in Saudi Arabia was hit by a strike coming from Yemen. The Saudis confirmed the strike.

“The President has been briefed on the reports of a missile strike in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. Houthi forces, aka Ansar Allah, hit the Saudi desalination and electricity plant at Al-Shuqaiq near the southern Saudi city Jizan.

Some 75 percent of the water the Saudis use comes from desalination plants.

The Houthi also launched an large attack on Jizan airport, possibly also part of an Iranian campaign to put “maximum pressure” on the US to stop a war.