Trump Spins New Goals for his War, Denies the Ones he already Talked about as He Hints at Rushing for the Exit
Trump is making overtures of ending his war before he has accomplished any of the objectives he waved around during the war’s first few weeks. Ironically, he has longtime warmonger Lindsay Graham encouraging him to shut it down quickly. Of course, he will need an out so that he can claim the war is ending because the victory happened back when he said it did, so we don’t need the war anymore. That means he needs to come up with a new objective we haven’t heard that matches whatever end we’re stuck with so he can claim that as his victory. He has Marco Rubio running a few possibilities up the flag pole today to see how they fly.
That sell job may go something like this:
Evidently we’re going to be told that “regime change” has occurred because different individuals are in charge. Mojtaba Khamenei is more hardline than his deceased father, but if you thought “regime change” meant a new regime and the “liberation” of the Iranian people, well, how many times can someone see Lucy with the football and keep trying to kick?
So, we will have successfully changed regimes to the same terrorist organization but run at the top by a man who is more hardline than his father, who ran the old regime. Sounds like victory to me! But I’m wearing my tinfoil hat while they give that a beta test now to see if they can make it fly.
The other day Marco Rubio listed four goals of the war that included none of the bold promises of the early days.
If you’re getting your information from FOX News (which is like following Covid on MSNBC) you’re sure this is all going great. It is not going great. Trump realizes this. His social media statements are not those of a man who thinks things are going great.
And they’re going even worse politically: thanks to the war, Donald Trump is now the most unpopular president since polling began, at a -17 level, and with the exception of the NeverTrumpers who are, curiously, now his best friends, the enthusiasm is gone.
Nothing strait
Trump, now says he doesn’t even care if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed or gets opened up, something he was adamant about only last week as a must-do for Iran, or he would “obliterate” Iran all over again. (This must be “the weave” in action.)
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump told aides he’ll end the war even if the Strait stays shut.
The mission to reopen it would extend the conflict beyond his 4-6 week timeline, so he’s punting it to diplomacy or telling allies to handle it themselves.
A Brookings expert called this “unbelievably irresponsible.”
The U.S. started a war that closed a waterway carrying 20% of the world’s oil and is now planning to leave without reopening it.
Furious with all other members of NATO for not joining his attack on Iran, the president said, the strait is their problem—their oil supply, their burden to fix. He’s getting even by leaving them in a tough strait of affairs. Or, at least, he may. (Right now, remember, we’re beta testing new goals that he always had.)
So much for “Open this strait now, or I’m going to destroy every power plant in Iran!” And so much for “They really negotiating. They really want a deal.” I wonder if, when Trump was negotiating his demand to reopen the strait right away, he just didn’t realize he was actually texting to someone in Nigeria.
Trump decided that the US should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s Navy and its missile stocks, and wind down the fighting, according to WSJ. The US would then pressure Iran diplomatically to resume the flow of trade and press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead, it reported.
I don’t recall “hobbling” ever being in any of the mission statements, even as a concept, much less a “main goal.” Earlier statements ran a lot more brazen than, “Let’s just damage them some and then get out while we can.”
“We have had regime change now. Regime change was not one of the things I had as a goal. I had one goal. They will have no nuclear weapon, and that goal has been attained. They will not have nuclear weapons,” Trump said.
I seem to recall the regime-change goal being thundered around the globe for a few weeks, but I guess that was in my nightmares as I slept in my tinfoil hat. I also seem to recall Trump claiming last summer that the no-nuclear weapons goal had been attained! Huh! I guess I remember that part correctly, but it has now been re-attained.
Anyway, the destruction of oil facilities all over the gulf region will remain firmly in place with Iran in control of the strait now that we have passed the first 4-week mark with only a max of two more weeks for Trump to be able to claim he completed the job on schedule and achieved everything he wanted. I do recall, though, that just yesterday he said he wanted all their oil, too. Hard to get that without the strait being open. So, I’m guessing they didn’t include the oil in the really nice present he said they gave him as a sign of good faith in their negotiations.
How the war ends matters
Trump doesn’t seem to realize the damage he’s caused will hit the whole world, including the US for years to come, even if he pulls out tonight. We’ll spend years, thanking Trump for the cost we will all be paying for energy and re-armament and interest, and will be wondering why it was worth the massive price plus the cost in US lives (and Iranian civilian lives) just to put tougher guys in charge of the same religiously crazed outfit. (Plus the other future costs I laid out for paying subscribers at the end of my Deeper Dive.)
It might also be hard for some of us to understand, if nukes were the only goal, as Trump now claims, and regime change never was, why we and Israel spent so much time taking out oil and gas infrastructure and fields with Iran’s help.
Trump also doesn’t seem to realize that the now much more hostile regime can determine when the war stops (or doesn’t) by simply continuing to bomb US bases until they destroy all of them completely—a job made far easier if Trump leaves. They’ll probably thank him for that exit plan. The “new regime” even announced today, they are going to start destroying major US companies in the region, presumably meaning they will destroy all their facilities throughout the Middle East. Pulling out will make that easier, too.
So, Trump leaving would be handing them a much bigger victory than Biden awarded to the Taliban when he turned tail and ran from Afghanistan, leaving many who had helped us to face the Taliban on their own. “Thanks for the help. See ya!” And leaving some of our high-grade armaments for them to play with.
Of course, these are just ideas Trump, as the master architect of war, is throwing out there. If they don’t go over well, he’ll claim they were never his plan and think up some new goals that he always had for this war, which he’ll present tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Karoline Leavitt has assured all of us that the price of oil will plunge right back to what it was before the war began once we leave. That is sooo reassuring! You might want to hold on to that promise for use in future ridiculing. Sure, the oil speculators will suddenly cause the price of oil to plunge, and it may stay down for a short time—all based on emotional relief in the absence of ability to think. Then we’ll start to feel the impact of the actual oil shortages, and those will drive the price up by pure supply-and-demand calculations. Up, up and up.
Then we can all thank pretty Karoline for her Leavitty in lightly assuring us that we are not feeling the pain we are feeling as the cost of heating our homes and running our cars goes much higher than it has gone already (crude hit the mark midday of the largest monthly rise in history, but it does not appear that it quite held that position by the close of trading). Remembering her words will help us realize we are not really feeling food shortages due to fertilizer shortages, even if we feel hungry. (For us in the US, it may not be shortages, but we’ll pay higher prices to drive the available fertilizer our way.)
We’ll be thanking Trump and Leavitt for the new strict diet plan.
Speaking of levity, enjoy the cartoons below:
