This is another one of those stories where the real newsworthiness is in the “why” not so much the who, what, when, and where. You’ll have to look hard and long in the history books to find a scenario where the sitting president is contemplating going to war with a foreign nation and not include the Secretary of Defense. How is that even conceivable? Now the Director of National Intelligence is a relatively new post, but historically speaking, in the 20 years since its creation, the sitting president has never excluded that person from discussions of this nature. Until today. We find out from the Washington Post that both parties are not part of Trump’s “Tier One” circle.
Trump instead has turned to a small group of lower-key but more experienced aides, these people said. The “Tier One” group advising on a potential U.S. strike on Iran is composed of Vice President JD Vance, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, according to an outside White House adviser, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive dynamics.
Pregnant pause. “More experienced” is the junior senator from Ohio, with two years in government, the vastly under-qualified Chair of the Joint Chiefs, and the ludicrous CIA director — along with Marco Rubio, who in any normal regime would probably not be the Secretary of State.
Together, this quartet is helping Trump as he decides whether to launch weapons only the United States possesses to target nuclear enrichment sites in Iran. Since Friday, Israel has bombed a number of Iranian nuclear sites but been unable to destroy deeply buried uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz. U.S. strikes would bring Washington into a new Middle East war with uncertain consequences, invite Iran’s promised retaliation against U.S. military bases in the region and potentially roil the global economy.
Trump said on Wednesday that he has not decided yet whether he will authorize a strike against Iran. His public statements have veered back and forth in recent weeks between a professed desire for a diplomatic deal that would eliminate Tehran’s nuclear program and martial threats, such as a Tuesday social media post demanding Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
“The president changes his position so quickly that it is hard to keep anybody in the loop,” said Sen. Jack Reed, top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I’m sure he’s not calling any of his advisers at 1 o’clock in the morning when he says ‘unconditional surrender’ and things like that. That’s one of the problems.”
That is a major problem and if Trump keeps up this way, he will succeed in fomenting terrorist attacks in this country. Trump has no idea who he’s dealing with and he’s not the one who will get directly hurt. A lot of other people will.
Spokespeople for Gabbard and Hegseth disputed that the two were not fully engaged in advising Trump.
Absolutely you would expect them to say that. Assuming that this is true, Hegseth is only in his job because Trump doesn’t want to give people the satisfaction of seeing him fired. Hegseth may already be, to all intents and purposes, a lame duck, somebody with the title Secretary of Defense, but not the actual power that that job implies and entails. And I suspect that Gabbard’s bad performance in front of Congress during the SignalGate investigation is what may have soured him on Gabbard. Ratcliffe’s performance was likewise unimpressive, but he wasn’t nearly as wooden and robotic as Gabbard was. But the real nail in the coffin was her video about nuclear war. Trump told Gabbard, “I saw the video, and I didn’t like it.” Nobody did. Whomever that video was directed at, it missed the audience by a country mile.
The president, who often operates on gut instinct, also is navigating the crisis without many of the support structures his predecessors have leaned on. Last month, the White House dismissed scores of professional staffers at the National Security Council, which coordinates U.S. security agencies to assess and prepare options for the president. Rubio is also serving as Trump’s national security adviser after predecessor Michael Waltz was pushed aside.
Rubio is the new Jared Kushner, if that’s not already apparent to you. He’s not just the Secretary of State, he’s the Secretary of Everything.
Gabbard also was not included in the Camp David retreat to talk about war with Iran. The excuse given was that she was on reserve duty with the Army Reserve that weekend. Righto. And this is comical: “Nobody is talking to Hegseth,” one official said. “There is no interface operationally between Hegseth and the White House at all.” Needless to say, his spox denies that vigorously.
And the headline is amusing: “Navigating Iran Crisis, Trump Relies On Experience Over Star Power.” Hegseth and Gabbard are “stars.” OMFG. This is not the Washington Post of my youth, friends. We don’t have Ben Bradlee, the editor who managed to topple Nixon with the Watergate investigation and Katherine Graham, the publisher who greenlighted him. We have cowed reporters working for Jeff Bezos and watering everything down.
I mention this because if Bradlee, or somebody like him, was in charge of the paper today, you would be getting the real story, not this diluted pap. But we do what we can with what we have to work with, right?
Making a decision about going to war without involving SecDef?
Then you remember SecDef is Hegseth and it kinda makes sense.
But it does beg the question, “Why have a SecDef and not use him?”
What’s he there for? If he can’t do his job?
somebody has to be doing the job, right?
Hegseth’s been of no real use to Drumpf since he purged the GOOD defense and Pentagon personnel and replaced them with DRUMPF loyalists.
Trumpler’s only concern regarding anything is “will it make good TV?” And by TV he means Fux News and its rightwingding imitators. So if his circle of incompetent misfits tells him that blowing up an Iranian mountain with a nuclear facility inside will make “huge TV” then he’ll do it. Great ratings and a terrific distraction from all the chaos and law-breaking he’s inflicting upon our nation.