An Idiot Playing with Matches and a Gasoline Can Under the Care of Arsonists

Against the highly distracting backdrop of the Mueller investigation, report and all things related to it, as well as all of the other Washington dysfunction, we have been steadily inching toward a potentially catastrophic armed conflict with Iran. In the absence of any carefully considered and coherent foreign policy strategy in the middle east, or anywhere else for that matter, and with many important vacant positions, currently including UN ambassador and secretary of defense, we have a moron-in-chief in the White House who reportedly doesn’t read his intelligence briefs and doesn’t believe his own intelligence services when the intel happens to conflict with his own political interests or psychopathology. This dangerous situation is compounded by Trump’s uncanny ability to hire some of the worst cabinet secretaries and other high-level advisers. Trump’s blind obsession with criticizing and trying to dismantle everything done by Obama’s administration has included withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, with which Iran was in compliance. This on top of his blind support for Saudi Arabia due to their opposition to Iran (and also very likely his personal financial entanglements) and close alignment with Netanyahu. Both his current national security advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have long public records of pushing for regime change in Iran, which may well have in part gotten them their appointments. However, despite Trump’s own clear isolationist tendencies, these hawks have likely been manipulating Trump into creating an increasingly volatile situation which could easily spiral out of anyone’s control and explode in everyone’s faces. The unilateral US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, unilateral imposition of new sanctions, declaring the Iran Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist organization and Trump’s aggressive anti-Iran rhetoric have predictably pushed Iran further into a corner, forcing them both economically and politically to react in any way they can, which may include renewing their nuclear program, and has apparently also included sabotaging 4 oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, partly to drive up oil prices. Their justifiable fear of a US attack could easily be resulting in military actions such as repositioning missiles which could be interpreted as offensive rather than defensive, ramping up tensions even further, and increasing the chance of an inadvertent (or intentional) incident which could spark a conflagration. This is all the more likely since some of Iran’s militias and proxy groups are not fully under their government’s control. Although Trump clearly wants to avoid what would be a catastrophic and probably very unpopular conflict, his hand may be forced by circumstances and his own ego and unwillingness to back down in a confrontation. On the other hand, wars can unite both citizens and elected officials behind their top leaders (on both sides!), and that would certainly push Trump’s other political problems to the side. So this could end up being the inadvertent catastrophe that many have feared a desperate Trump would actually engineer to get himself reelected. It is at least encouraging that even GOP members of Congress are expressing concern about this situation and the lack of Congressional briefings and input, with everyone still mindful of the Iraq war debacle and what led up to it. On the other hand, Congress has been all too willing in recent years to let the responsibility and blame for difficult foreign-policy decisions rest with the president. It is no surprise that now that his North Korea denuclearization efforts have stalled, Trump is eerily silent about that, instead focusing on another problem country that he (mistakenly) seems to think he can more effectively bully into submission. So far Trump has racked up no significant foreign policy “wins” to advertise in 2020, but that won’t stop him from bragging about keeping us out of war with North Korea and (hopefully) Iran, both in the face of high risk situations that he himself created or exacerbated!

Meanwhile, lots more intrigue, stonewalling, posturing, etc. between the administration and congress over absolutely everything, i.e. business as (now) usual!!