Seems like it. But as Cheryl Rofer notes, it's quite difficult to graft rational decision making onto Trump's governance. I have been struck by how out in the open these military plans are. The movement of massive amounts of airpower to the Middle East has not been subtle. Surprise is not apparently the operative word here.
Maybe he is just trying to bully Iran into some form of concession on...something. It certainly seems like his fundamental demand is that Iran no longer be a sovereign power hostile to the United States. As with so much of Trump's blinkered grasp of the world, he seems mired in the '70s and '80s where Iran is this supreme villain that must be squashed, perhaps by Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone. Iran does have a terrible regime, but as with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, that seems insufficient for embarking on a land war in Asia.
Why?
Is it Epstein Distraction 2,853? Maybe.
I do wonder if Trump is so clearly declining that the creatures around him are basically running wild through the Executive Branch like toddlers jacked up on sugar and, for some reason, Red Bull. That particular cadre of retrograde Republican militarists who just like to explode shit and think it's realpolitik are basically free to do what "common sense foreign policy" says they should do: drop a few million dollars worth of bombs and cruise missiles, which will make the Ayatollah abdicate in fear. I think their inspiration was a Twisted Sister video from 1984.
The Iranian military is mostly a decrepit joke at this point, though they might luck into shooting down an American airplane and that won't be bad at all. A ground invasion? Good lord.
A reminder that Very Savvy Journalists felt that Trump was the "Peace Candidate" in 2016.
UPDATE: Looks like we're effectively at war with Cuba, and I didn't even know it. This has Rubio all over it.
UPDATE II: Given that SCOTUS has just show down his tariff bullshit, I would expect him to channel his rage into missile strikes.
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