The gauntlet thrown down by someone who’s unpopular over Afghanistan and who’s hoping to get his popularity back with this drama.
It's called "changing the subject." The aim is to get people stirred up about his covid dictates to get Afghanistan out of the headlines. I have a hunch people are going to stay stirred up about both no matter how much the media downplay Afghanistan. The man -- or the peppetmaster pulling his strings -- is a dictator. This is not going to end well.