What could be more promising for a Trump presidential 2020 run than a tidy little war to distract attention from....well, you name your favorite hi-jinks. Such a war would give the commander-in-chief golden opportunities for meeting planes at Dover Air Force Base where U.S. military are brought home for burial, for bestowing medals on the walking-wounded, and for bragging that his war finally will bring peace to the Middle East--unlike all other presidents' wars.
Paul Pillar has a run down for a run-up to war between the U.S. and Iran. He questions Secretary Pompeo's claims that Iran attacked the two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, and that the U.S. has evidence to prove it. What if Saudi Arabia and Israel are stirring the pot?
Pilar goes on to argue that even if Iran is responsible for the attacks, it has good reason given U.S. policy. The Trump Administration's attacks on Iran include rescinding the U.S. participation in the JCPOA, increased sanctions on Iran, and threats to nations that continue to trade with Iran. This is called the Maximum Pressure Campaign--for what end? Trump may claim he wants to negotiate, but Pompeo and Bolton don't.
Read Pilar's judicious analysis at LobLog (no paywall!)
Update: NYTimes has an opinion piece up looking at the claims about the attack on the two ships. Certainly not conclusive according to the author, managing director of "the investigative collective Bellingcat". Instructive about data and info from open sources.
More Updates: WSJ 6/17 (pay wall). Reuel Gerecht and Ray Takeyh have an op-ed arguing that Iran is fragile and that the U.S. could bring down the regime. No mention of who would take over.
And More: Perhaps the MEK, an Iranian exile group with various terrorist actions in its record (You may remember them from the U.S. war in Iraq). Or maybe ISIS, now in search of a new caliphate. LobeLog has a run-down on MEK's current activities along with a claim that a fake news article was behind Trump's cancellation of the JPCOA.
Unbelievable: Patrick Shanahan has withdrawn as nominee for Secretary of Defense. Will Pompeo get the nod? He seems to be consulting today with the Centcom and Socom.
Not the Secy of State's job. Increasingly Unbelievable: Mark Esper, the new acting secretary of defense, West Point classmate of Pompeo, and former lobbyist for military contractor Raytheon and staff of Heritage Foundation. NYTimes profile.
COMMONWEAL: "A war with Iran is entirely avoidable."
I don't believe ANY of this "evidence". Especially with this coop full of chickenhawks called the White House. I am surprised the Orange Poltroon hasn't started a war earlier. Now I want to see how the mainstream media and the Democratic politicians handle this.
ReplyDeleteI noticed last evening the word used one the Newshour was "purported," re the Iranians did it!
DeletePeter Baker has a "news analysis" in Saturday's NYT saying Trump's serial lying leaves the world skeptical about the charges against Iran. What a kettle of fish! Who is going to believe Trump when the Martians land on the WH lawn?
Peter Baker: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/us/politics/trump-iran-credibility.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Even if the evidence were incontrovertible and this qualified as a just war, it still could not be initiated because the Commander-in-Chief is a stupid clown. There is no leadership.
DeleteI am wondering what the Donfather would use as his authority for doing what Bolton wants. I guess he don't need no stinkin' authority from Congress, not as long as Addison mitch McConnell mumbles, but I don't believe he has it. I am wondering why no one is speculating on how he would get it if he suddenly decided to obey the Constitution and laws.
ReplyDeleteStanley, the Democrats will blame Trump, McConnell and Fox in that order. It's their version of "round up the usual suspects."
Some pundit on the radio said re this situation that "Trump doesn't have a strategic bone in his body," that what he wants to do about Iran (and everything else) changes moment by moment. Sometimes he doesn't want to get embroiled in a foreign offense, and sometimes he Just wants to counter-punch blindly.
ReplyDeleteThere are, of course, other operators with hopes and dreams of war inn the administration. They, in conjunction with a volatile and highly suggestible president, are a scary combo.
Now, a theoretical question. If we get embroiled in a war which clearly doesn't meet "just war" criteria, are there going to be any politicians or state department officials who are denied Communion over it?
ReplyDeletePretty sure I know the answer is going to be "crickets".
Last July the Donfather tweeted to Iranian president Rouhani:"NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE." That was a threat about words. Now the Donfather says Iran has escalated to actions.
ReplyDeleteIn a serious and competent administration, the president would be meeting with top advisers to choose among the possible "consequences." In this case, that would include the ACTING Secretary of Defense, the kiss-up-kick-down National Security Advisor and the heads of the intelligence agencies he doesn't believe and whom he has put on notice to stop spying on his bff Kim Jung Un. (Or maybe his top advisers are Kim, Steve Doocy and, of course, Vladimir Putin.) Instead of serious meetings, he has been discussing the hermeneutics of accepting help from Russia in his re-election campaign with Doocy and the other two dolts on the divan.
It would seem that a year ago he said there would be war. But nobody believed him them, and hardly anybody believes what he is saying about Iran now. As Peter Baker noted in today's New York Times, the Quinnipiac Poll shows only 35 percent of Americans trust the Donfather to tell the truth about serious matters. And that's Americans; he scores in single digits in the rest of the world. Maybe even with Rouhani. And that last, of course, is the situation that could bring down upon the Donfather and us the war he is not prepared for and has not taken seriously up to now.
All of this is par for the past two years. But we really can't shrug it off. The election is more than 500 days away. And win or lose, he will be more dangerous after the election than he is now.
The Aftermath of November 3, 2020 election!!! Is that why impeachment may come to look critically important?
DeleteOne thing a war would provide is a distraction from the Mueller Report, the revolving door White House Staff, and rumors of massive corruption. Of course I don't know why he needs any distractions from those things; they don't seem to be bothering many of his party who ought to be considering impeachment.
ReplyDeleteThey bother him now because he is seriously slipping in the polls. According to a FOX(!) News article the other day, he is well behind every single Democratic nomination front runner no matter who they are. His tariff nonsense is hitting his base very hard. (According to my Chicago truck driving brother, inbound container traffic is almost nil and Chicago yards now have....wait for it....975,000 empty containers lying around. The last time this happened was in 2008 with the Great Recession. The Republicans have been slavishly supporting Trump because he seems to have a lock on a large enough base to ensure power. But if this slips seriously, they are going to start to look elsewhere for a candidate. So he needs a distraction where he can strut around and look leaderlike, preferably wearing a high ranking Space Force uniform or something. (Maybe he can wear all of his old high school military school decorations on it).
DeleteBut wait, Patrick!! He denies he's slipping. He even denies his campaign's own polls. And the media's polls? Fake News...
DeleteWhen he denies something, you know it's true.
DeleteBut, Patrick, remember the wisdom of Gao Le Ji: When you see smoke from the enemy's camp rising, it is time to prepare for battle. When you see it rising from within your own walls, it is probably too late to prepare." (Peckerwood,tr.)
DeleteWhere is Sir Charles Peckerwood when we need him now?
DeletePeckerwood? Caught up in the Brexit Imbroglio. Or is it the Oman Standoff?
DeleteCould Congress actually help here? I don't want to get too hopeful about our nation's most talented prevaricating bloviators, but there are some marginally bipartisan efforts to curb and block Trump's emergency powers re Iranian tensions and the arms deals Trump negotiated in the region.
ReplyDeleteWaPo: "A cadre of Republicans — including Sens. Todd C. Young (Ind.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Mike Lee (Utah) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), a Trump ally — have joined the clamor to limit the president’s authority, inspired by what they see as end runs around Congress that could exacerbate regional instability, even if they otherwise support Trump’s stance against Iran."
Meantime, independent analysts on the NewsHour last night seemed to agree that Iran is the perp on the mines, and that this might be part of a larger strategy to to renegotiate with the U.S. from a position of strength. They cautioned that what Iran says publicly could be posturing that covers attempts behind the scenes to open communication.
But who knows. Clarity has been missing from our public arena for a long time.
NewsHour: Gerecht is a neo,neo, neo Con! Vali Nasar not. Agree that both seemed to agree on the Perp, but offered no evidence. I don't think anyone, except Israel and SA, would support our attacking Iran. They did go on to suggest that there was likely diplomatic maneuvering here. But to what end?
DeleteIt could be settled so easily if Rouhani would agree to meet Trump one-on-one and talk about the Trump Tehran. Qatar might be willing to facilitate. Or Poland.
Delete"But to what end?"
DeleteGood question.
Trump has said Obama's nuclear deal with Iran was bad for a lot of fake reasons that boil down to the fact that Trump didn't get to pee on it first. Plus Trump hates multinational agreements, and likely thinks that, as a dealmaker, he can get something better out of Iran if he goes it alone.
Trump will likely get some watered down version of what Obama got, but he'll be able to sniff the paper, smell his own comforting odor of aging testosterone and hair spray, so it will be the greatest deal EVER!
Yeah, Gerecht and Grover Norquist and Frank Luntz. There's a dinner party I'd avoid like the plague.
DeleteMeanwhile....from Brexit challenged land.
ReplyDeleteCorbyn says, "no"; Tories, "yes".
But there's someone who remembers what happened the last time the UK got suckered into a U.S. war:
"Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, appeared to soften Labour’s stance on the issue, saying that there needed to be further “processes” to establish whether Iran was behind the attack. She suggested that Iran could have carried out the tanker attack after taking the “bait” of western sanctions.
“These are extremely dangerous developments and we really have to pause and think about where we are going next,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Thornberry insisted that the main issue was avoiding “British forces being drawn into a conflict of that size”.
“We’ve got to give up on this idea that if the United States go into war, especially one engineered by the likes of John Bolton and the neocons, we have to stop and say there are times when we don’t just follow,” Thornberry said."
The Guardian story:
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/15/iran-us-divisions-deepen-over-gulf-of-oman-oil-tankers-attack
Thanks for the update, Margaret. With satellite imagery and the availability of other footage, it is harder to make a case for war with trumped-up evidence.
ReplyDeleteA big difference between now and the Iraq war is that none of our allies, if there are any, are eager and willing to come to our aid or make haste to help us.
Right! No Allies. That's what Trump gets for bad-mouthing NATO, Merkel and Macron.
DeleteNo allies? Secy of State Mike Pompeo is optimistic. Israel is aboard, at least as long as Bibi stays out of jail. Saudi Arabia is aboard, at least unless the crown prince is indicted for planning international murder. Britain is in, sort of, but don't bother the Brits while they are solving their domestic problems.
DeleteElsewhere? Well, if I am Angela Merkel, I am thinking: 1) The Trumpers lie. 2) Iraq wasn't all that brilliant. 3) We helped in Afghanistan, but the Donfather keeps forgetting. And when he remind him, he says, "What have you done for ME lately?" And forgets again. 4) He isn't interested in the things we are interested in, like rumbling Russia, 5) If we get in, he will take credit for what goes right, and I'll be "Messy Merkel" when something goes wrong. So when Mike calls, tell him I'm busy over a hot pan of lebkuchen.
The European leaders breathed a sigh of relief when Obama was elected. Then came Trump. Even if we elect in 2020 a president who isn't a mental patient, how can other countries be assured the crazy American electorate won't subsequently put another whacko in power. I think it'll take two consecutive responsible eight year administrations to restore international confidence in this country.
DeleteRe: the update;if Gerecht and Takeyh are correct that Iran is in a fragile moment, the US had best think about Pottery Barn rules, and proceed with extreme caution. I know, "extreme caution" and the Trump administration seem to be mutually exclusive.
ReplyDeleteYes, you break it, you pay for it. As with Iraq and who knows where else.
ReplyDeleteThis is all getting real weird. It would really take a Hunter S. Thompson to do justice to all this material.
ReplyDeleteOur President is so exercised up about immigration and Iran, and Congress is so busy arguing impeachment, that no one has noticed the jacked up prices people have to pay for a vial of insulin, which can be purchased OTC in Canada for 10 percent of what it costs here.
Some Canadians aren't too happy about Americans coming over to purchase in bulk. Calls have been made for a Wall to keep out American customers.
When you've pissed off Canadians, you know you're screwed.
Well, pissing the Canadians has become an in thing among the Trumpers and Trumpettes. Remember, the Donfather tariffed them even as he was asking Congress to approve his new and improved NAFTA (same treaty, new name) in which we would promise not to do such things. And since the Donfather started channeling Smoot & Hawley, tariffing is his new form of bubble gum in people's hair.
DeleteFlorida has passed and our odd governor has signed a law saying the state can buy medicine in bulk from Canada. No consultation with Canadians before we decided to do it. (Does the Donfather consult? No. So why should his acolytes?) Anyhow, the governor -- another in a long line of declarers of success upon announcement of the plan -- says already the drug companies are coming to him asking if they can make a deal. We shall see.
"Let's Make a Dope Deal!" Sorry, just remembering an old Cheech and Chong schtick. Which reminds we got legal pot in Michigan now, so if you need an Epi-pen, prednisone, methotrexate, BCG, Shingrex vaccine, or insulin but can't get it because of the shortages, you can stay high and pretend everything is just fine.
DeleteJean, LOL about Cheech and Chong memories. That one was almost as good as "Earache, My Eye"
DeleteEvery so often Raber and I watch "Up in Smoke." Stupid funny. Pair it up with "Strange Brew" with the McKenzie Brothers (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas) for a double feature. But I digress.
DeleteRe: Pompeo, Espe, etc.
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON — Even as he raised eyebrows by making an unusual visit to US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo found himself today stressing that President Donald Trump does not want war, in the latest confusing rollercoaster of US-Iran escalation and slight easing of tensions....
"But Pompeo’s message about restoring deterrence was delivered, confusingly, in a US military hangar that seemed intended to project the optics of the nation’s top diplomat conferring with US military officers.....
"Army Secretary Mark Esper will take over Shanahan’s role on an acting basis, and the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Ok., told reporters the former Raytheon lobbyist is likely to be nominated for the full post. The New York Times reported that Pompeo and Navy Secretary Richard Spencer are among others on the short list." Al-Monitor (no paywall)
Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/06/pompeo-centcom-trump-messaging-iran.html#ixzz5rJvMzDkd
I dunno. I watched Pompeo in the Hangar episode yesterday on the news:
DeleteDoes anybody ever come out and say the president wants war? No. Not even after war is declared. The president always hates war. Even if he loves it.
Do we really have to pay attention to the optics of the military hangar here? Did Pompeo go to a military hangar purposely to telegraph the "real" message here? Is this over-analysis? If so, is overanalysis an inevitable result of what happens when a president lies so much that the press is constantly looking for clues about what is REALLY going on?
I don't care what Jim Inhofe thinks he knows about who is going to be nominated for what. Didn't everybody think Shanahan was going to be nominated until five minutes before he wasn't? The Trump administration doesn't tell Congress jack about what it's going to do--probably because they just don't know.
I wonder why Pompeo would be moved from State to Defense? Is this something he wants? And then who would be Secretary of State? Jared Kushner? God help us, because whoever it is it will be nobody I want.
Well, if we had to choose (not that anyone asked) between Pompeo and Tom Cotton, who is said to have Trump's pro-war ear, we see that even the lesser evils are hanging on the abyss of damnation!
DeleteLet us ponder the "optics." The lobbyist from Raytheon replaces the lobbyist from Boeing at the top of Defense Department as it girds for war. We will have procurement, but will we have logistics? The former acting head, appointed by the president of family values, had to withdraw because of, um, family values? Mike Pompeo, who used to run the CIA may be running the Department of Defense on the side while he runs the State Department because he is one of the few Donfather consiglieri with Senate approval. Keep America Great. But it appears the great dealmaker can't manage a one-car funeral procession, much less a government.
ReplyDeleteTrump appoints business people because that makes businesses beholden to him and translates into contributions to his campaign (and possibly investment ventures). He has, effectively, side-stepped lobbyists with their little tit-for-tat payments for votes and simply put corporate America in charge of things.
DeleteAlso, I doubt he neither knows nor has ever heard of anybody who with governmental or policy experience, excepting goofballs like Rick Perry and Rudy Giuliani. So no way he could put anybody qualified in charge because that might mean taking advice and learning new things. Which he doesn't do because, you know, stable genius.