Trump ordered the assassination of a top Iranian official, or at least that is what the narrative is. Trump is certainly not denying that he was involved in the decision, so I will take him at his word that he has blood on his hands.
I first started this blog in 2008, and one of my first pieces was about Iran. I was fearful that the Bush administration at that time was going to launch a war against Iran. Thankfully, that did not happen. The disaster in Iraq was such a stain on Bush that it made it virtually impossible (politically speaking) to start another war.
Here we are over a decade later, and we are on the verge of a full-scale war with Iran. When Trump campaigned in 2015 and 2016, he talked about the disastrous and endless wars in the Middle East. Now that he is in office, he has been unable to end the wars, and he has started a new conflict with Iran.
This is not the doing of Iranian officials. They do not seek war with the United States. It is Trump’s fault for pulling out of the agreement with Iran, which was one of the few good things that Obama did as president. Trump slapped sanctions on the Iranians and has continued to make threats. With this assassination, there is a real and significant danger of escalation.
Some might argue that Trump is not really calling the shots. Maybe it is Pence and Pompeo and the other war hawks in his administration. Maybe Trump is taking orders from the Israeli government. Maybe Republican senators are nudging him into conflict in exchange for supporting Trump when the Senate has hearings from the House impeachment. Maybe it is all of these things.
One thing we do know is that Trump is not in the dark about what is happening. He is defending this assassination of an Iranian official. The best you can say about Trump at this point is that he is a coward. He will stand up to the media at times, and he will pick fights with people on Twitter. But when it comes to the war hawks that he hired, he has no courage.
Trump doesn’t have to listen to them. He can give a primetime speech in front of the American people explaining why he is ordering the immediate withdrawal of troops from the Middle East. But he hasn’t done this. Instead, he goes along with murdering someone and risking a major war.
Even if you think of the worst-case scenario – meaning, the best excuse for Trump – I don’t see how anyone who is anti war can support him. Even if he is secretly being threatened that something bad will happen to his family if he doesn’t go along, then he should simply resign from office.
When I say that anti war people should not support Trump, it doesn’t mean you should act like his worst enemies. You shouldn’t have Trump Derangement Syndrome. You can speak in favor of the good things he does and speak out against the bad things he does.
The Hypocritical Left
Most of the political left have proven themselves to be a bunch of hypocrites. They will criticize Trump no matter what. They criticize him when he announces the withdrawal of troops from northeastern Syria. They criticize him for cozying up to dictators when he meets with the North Korean leader.
Now, Trump is giving the less interventionist position to the left by engaging in war with Iran. Now they can criticize him and take the less hawkish stance.
Of course, much of the left will say that the Iranian official was a really bad guy (without offering any proof, of course). Their main talking point right now is that Trump did not get authorization from Congress. Has that ever stopped any president of the last 70 years or more from engaging in foreign intervention? The original authorization to use military force after 9/11 has been used to justify war virtually everywhere in the Middle East. An actual declaration of war hasn’t taken place since World War 2.
Regardless of the bad and unprincipled arguments made by most of the left, they still gain the high ground on Trump on this issue. Trump was too much of a coward to stand up to his neoconservative buddies.
I think Trump will lose some support from libertarians and libertarian leaning people who didn’t necessarily agree with Trump on many things, but were at least sympathetic to him in his battle against the deep state.
Trump has maybe done two good things for the cause of liberty. One is that he was actually elected in the face of a hostile media. He got past the establishment. This should give us some hope that it is possible to bypass the establishment.
The second good thing is that Trump has helped expose the deep state, which is a term that was rarely used four years ago. For anyone paying attention, it is obvious that there is an establishment elite that looks to control the narrative.
As far as I am concerned, Trump has served his purpose. We have no more use for him at this point. He is a disaster in almost every way when it comes to policies. I really doubt that Bernie Sanders could be much worse. If Bernie is president, at least we might see some congressional opposition to the massive budgets.
As for Bernie, I think he is a beneficiary of Trump’s blunder with Iran. Bernie is probably the best of the major candidates when it comes to foreign policy. I am not including Tulsi Gabbard.
As I frequently point out, I don’t trust Bernie when it comes to foreign policy. He does not emphasize it, and he campaigned for Hillary in 2016, who is one of the biggest war hawks of all time. I have little doubt that Bernie will be put in his place as soon as he takes office, if not before. But maybe we could have a little hope that he will be a little less belligerent than all of the presidents we have seen so far in the 21stcentury.
The establishment is against Bernie because he does suggest less intervention overseas. He wants more intervention domestically, but his policies might hurt the military-industrial complex. I don’t know who the establishment would be more against in a matchup between Trump and Sanders. After this week, they might actually favor Trump.
Out of all of the Democratic candidates, Bernie has the largest following of loyal supporters. People who favor Joe Biden are just favoring him by default. The longer that several major candidates stay in the race, the more it favors Sanders. The others will split up the more establishment votes.
I wish Bernie would take a more principled stand against war. I wish he would emphasize the issue more. Unfortunately, he will probably continue to play envy games against the top 1%, or whatever it is. He cares more about soaking the rich than he does about saving innocent lives of foreigners. Still, I think Bernie is going to benefit from Trump’s stupid, dangerous, and cowardly move against Iran.