“So why go to war with Iran? Why walk away from a nuclear agreement that Iran did not violate? Why demonize a government that is the mortal enemy of the Taliban, along with other jihadist groups, including al-Qaida and Islamic State? Why shatter the de facto alliance we have with Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why further destabilize a region already dangerously volatile?
The generals and politicians who launched and prosecuted these wars are not about to take the blame for the quagmires they created. They need a scapegoat. It is Iran. The hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed, including at least 200,000 civilians, and the millions driven from their homes into displacement and refugee camps cannot, they insist, be the result of our failed and misguided policies.” Chris Hedges, Truthdig
Well, only two days into the new year and decade and mad King Donald I has gone and teed up war with Iran. Months ago, way before Trump was impeached, I predicted that we would come to this point. If this goes south as quickly as many professional observers, like Chris Hedges and Juan Cole, believe it will, it will belong 100% to the washed-up real estate mogul who fancies himself an infallible leader.
Trump has no idea what he’s done. The blowback will come from many angles, some that cannot be anticipated by generals and experts and media talking heads, and certainly not by the dimwitted Trump. For a time he gets to play Donald-the-Conqueror, but then it will all change. Although Americans are weaned to believe that we are the smartest, fastest, coolest, and most deserving people in the world, much smarter than any of the people whose countries we bomb or invade or colonize, the fact is we invariably underestimate our opponents. For proof, see the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Iran will not be any different. The Iranian leadership is brutal and repressive, no doubt or argument about this. But the Iranian masses are not going to start cheering for Trump and America to rescue them or help them overthrow the government. Iran is a far different animal from Afghanistan, and quite different from the Iraq the US pulverized in 2003. What’s the end game, Donald? You going to ride in on your golf cart and take Iran’s oil?
This strike has other people’s fingerprints all over it, like MBS in Saudi Arabia and old reliable Bibi Netanyahu in Israel. Trump reportedly talked to both while not bothering to talk to Congress or the tattered remains of our European alliance. Both MBS and Bibi have corruption syndrome, the weight of domestic politics, and both have celebrated as Trump abrogated the Iran Nuclear Deal and instituted brutal economic sanctions, which, let’s not forget, is itself an act of war. Trump tried with all his might to strangle Iran.
War is the ultimate distraction, and the US populace is not known for its attention span, particularly when it comes to our “beautiful” military, and I’m sure Trump is wagering he can ride a pyrrhic wave of patriotic feeling away from his impeachment troubles, his legal battles, and the con man’s ultimate fear -- that it’s all going to come crashing down and he will be exposed as an incompetent fraud.
Buy the ticket, take the ride, as Hunter S. Thompson said.
Fine start to the new decade. America’s political leaders, the elites and the 1% refuse to accept any limits on their power. They have a learning disability. They still cling to the belief that the best way to reshuffle the Middle East for America’s (and Israel’s) benefit is regime change. This has to be some form of psychosis. The American Empire is headed for the shoals.
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