The story from the Trump regime on Monday: Israel forced our hand on Iran. The story from Donald Trump himself on Tuesday: “I might have forced their hand.”
“We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first, they were going to attack first, they were going to attack if we didn’t do it. They were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that,” Trump told reporters in an Oval Office gaggle.
ICYMI
- We’re at war with Iran: And without clear objectives, there is no end in sight
- The Keystone Kops are in charge of the Iran war planning: No reason to be alarmed
- Alon Ben-Meir: Trump, Netanyahu are chasing an illusion in Iran
News flash: Iran wasn’t going to attack first, or at all.
If Iran hadn’t already been marginalized by economic sanctions before, the U.S.-Israel attacks last summer neutralized the Islamic Republic as a military threat going forward.
“There was no imminent threat to the United States of America by the Iranians,” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Tuesday. “When we are talking about putting American soldiers in harm’s way, when we have American casualties and expectations of more, there needs to be the proof of an imminent threat to American interest. I still don’t think that standard has been met.
“The president needs to come before the Congress and, for that matter, the American people, and decide amongst these four or five goals that have been laid out, what is the real goal? What is the objective?” Warner said.
What we’re seeing here is, Trump not wanting to admit that he let somebody else talk him into doing something that isn’t working out as planned, so, he’s insisting that things are, in fact, going as expected, and that it was his idea from the jump.
It won’t take long for him to go the other route, and throw Netanyahu under the bus.
The stock market, which Trump bragged about a couple of weeks ago, when the Dow Jones average was over 50,000, is down 4 percent from that high.
Between that, and gas prices being up 17 cents a gallon since yesterday, isn’t going to play well with the base.
Meanwhile, the entirety of the Middle East is under attack, from all sides.
Trump and Netanyahu have, in effect, launched World War III, for reasons no one has been able to articulate.
“Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and longstanding state sponsorship of terror have threatened our allies and targeted American interests for decades. Their continued aggression cannot be allowed to continue to threaten America’s national security,” said Ben Cline, who represents our Sixth District in Congress.
“Iran’s oppressive regime has brutalized its own people, targeted Americans, and fueled terror and instability across the Middle East for decades,” Cline said. “President Trump did what others refused to do. He confronted Ayatollah Khamenei’s ruthless rule and put America First by defending our citizens and restoring strength on the world stage. I stand with the people of Iran as they seek freedom from tyranny.”
The Khamenei regime was no doubt “oppressive” internally, but its ability to project its targets outside its own borders had largely been muted – with its neighbors aligning with the West due to their shared economic interests.
The attack on Iran launched on Saturday was Netanyahu pressing his personal political interests – sensing that Iran’s clerical elites were at their weakest point regionally in decades, and gambling that the internal political situation could lead to a mass movement that could topple the government from within.
The removal of the Islamist regime, and installation of a Western-friendly government in its place, would make Netanyahu the hero of his generation.
Netanyahu pressured Trump, who suffers from the same sin of vainglory as Netanyahu, into making it a tag-team effort, and here we are.
“Six American soldiers dead, literally hundreds of thousands of Americans caught in 12 countries in the Middle East, unable to leave, and yesterday, we heard four different explanations for why Trump’s war of choice was started,” Warner said. “The question I keep asking is, Donald Trump has said to people of Iran, go to the streets, protest, take over your government. What happens if there’s 100,000 protesters on the streets of Tehran and the Iranian military kills 5,000 ,10,000, 20,000, because Donald Trump called them to the streets. Does America owe an obligation then to put troops on the ground?
“We all know starting a war in the Middle East is a lot easier than ending one, and with Donald Trump in charge, God knows where this may head,” Warner said.
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Chris Graham
