The Iran “excursion” that the United States is involved in may not go down in history as its shortest war but it’s at the top of the list for America’s stupidest war. Donald Trump had a vague objective of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power and all he has achieved is shutting down a key shipping lane which was wide open and productive before he began meddling with it. In the words of the New Republic, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have royally screwed one another over. (And us.)
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu share a lot of traits. They are both solipsistic, mendacious, narcissistic, and paranoid megalomaniacs who perceive themselves as victims of a cabal of elites. Now they share something else: They have lost a war together. Driven by vanity and hubris, the U.S. president and Israeli prime minister miscalculated Iran’s mettle, and now their mutually inflicted failure is causing them considerable political harm at home. What started as a Smith & Wesson partnership has degenerated into a Thelma & Louise ending.
In the U.S., there has been no rally-around-the-president effect from this war. Every day, another poll shows Trump’s approval rating hitting a new low and support for the war below 40 percent. As The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend, his public “bravado” is a mere mask for his private fears about the damage the war is doing to him as he stares down the November midterm elections that appear certain to cost him unified control of Washington.
Meanwhile, in Israel, Netanyahu is getting clobbered on all sides. The New York Times reported Friday that “the prime minister’s critics, and even some of his allies on the right, have seized on … his inability to resist Mr. Trump’s pressure” to end the war. Netanyahu’s coalition, like Trump’s, is also lagging in polls in an election year. “A core element of Mr. Netanyahu’s appeal to voters—the argument that his close bond and strategic mind meld with Mr. Trump make him uniquely equipped to ensure Israel’s security—now appears far less convincing,” the Times noted.
As reporting from the aforementioned outlets has shown, Netanyahu prodded and, some might say, dragged Trump into a war America had no interest in. In that sense, Netanyahu is responsible for Trump’s political damage. But with all due respect to Netanyahu’s swindling qualities, you can’t really “drag” the president of the United States into a war he does not want to participate in. A willing, even enthusiastic Trump joined Netanyahu in what he thought was a cool video game in which the other side would surrender quickly. Because the war failed to achieve anything close to Netanyahu’s fantasy scenarios of Iranian capitulation and regime change, Trump in fact inflicted major political damage on Netanyahu.
Trump entered this war without clear and attainable objectives, without public support, without coherently defined deliverables, and with no overriding American interests at stake. A war that he justified as “preventing Iran from becoming nuclear” is now mainly an effort to reopen a shipping corridor that was wide open before he launched the war. History will judge him harshly on this adventure, but Trump may not be defined solely by the failed Iran war. However ill conceived and impulsive it was, it’s one among many of his destructive, incomprehensible, self-inflicted political debacles.
The staggering irony here is that Iran has found out that closing the Strait of Hormuz is actually more empowering than having an H-bomb or even its terror proxies in the world. Iran is in charge of an unstable global economy, to a large extent now and Israel is even more of a pariah state.
The mettle and fortitude of the Iranian state was completely misjudged by both Trump and Netanyahu. This was supposed to be a quick win, like in a video game when some heavy duty players show up. So far it’s been a loss for both the U.S. and Israel.
Trump has no idea how to exit Iran, gracefully or otherwise. That’s the reason he goes on right-wing media and praises himself for only 50 days in the war — so far. That 50 days will expand and at what cost is anybody’s guess.
I keep remembering that if he had never pulled out of the nuclear agreement, none of this would have been necessary.
Well, in fairness, I’m pretty certain that pretty much every/any GOPer who’d become President after Obama would’ve “pulled out of” (aka “shredded to sub-atomic particles”) the nuclear agreement since there wasn’t a GOPer who publicly supported it as good.
HMMmmm..
Collective stupidity…..
If they really have become Thelma and Louise, I await with anticipation their final scene, flying through the air.
Please, Lord, soon! As much as I want to see tRump flying through the air, seeing the two of their white fannies flying through the air together would really be much more fun!
OK, but let them launch themselves in a Tesla, rather than a beautiful vintage convertible ..
between gaza and iran trump has made the us a joke that won’t be trusted for decades and bibi has put a target on the back of every israeli for generations. in addition to the descriptions above they are both crooks. both countries are controlled by parties with people who presumably actually know what needs to be done to start to repair the damage. none have the guts to do so. each country is being destroyed by the people in power who have decided that all allegiance is owed to one man instead of the nation.