Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden has held Donald Trump responsible for the current instability in the Middle East as he withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposed sanctions on Iran.

According to the Associated Press, Biden said at a rally in the early caucus state of Nevada that everything that has happened in Iran and Iraq in recent weeks was brought on by Trump “walking away” from a nuclear deal in 2018 that enjoyed strong international support.

“This is a president who doesn’t listen to his military, who doesn’t listen to his intelligence community,” he said.

Biden, who was vice president when President Barack Obama signed the nuclear deal and earlier served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said he warned more than a month ago that Trump would “get us in a war .... and get us in a war in Iran.”

“This president has embraced thugs across the world. He has poked his finger in the eye of our friends and allies,” Biden said. “The next president better be able to figure out how to bring back these alliances and pull us back together.”

Trump ordered assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike in Baghdad on January 3. 

In retaliation, Iran carried out missile attacks on a U.S. base in Iraq on Wednesday morning.

NA