Trump Predicted An Incompetent U.S. President Would Start A War With Iran To Help Him Win Reelection-- Who Could Have Guessed He'd be Right About Something?

After the assassinations in Baghdad this week, CNN reported that the U.S. is deploying thousands of additional troops to the Middle East as tensions with Iran mount. And CNN also reported that Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani says the United States and Iran should “solve their disputes through dialogue… We call on our great neighbor Iran-- with which we share similarities in language, religion, history and culture-- and the United States of America, which is a strategic and fundamental partner of Afghanistan, to prevent tensions and we hope that both sides can solve their disputes through dialogue.” Ghani assured his countrymen and neighboring countries that Afghanistan-- an American client state-- will not be the starting point of any attacks "against a third country or other regional countries," a point he emphasized in a call with Mike Pompeo. No other American allies-- other than Israel-- are backing the U.S. on this.

Yesterday in his New York Magazine column, Jonathan Chait predicted that Trump’s calculation-- the attacking Iran-- will help his reelection bid, is wrong. Watch the video up top for context.

Just like Trump’s notions that Obama would direct his attorney general whom to investigate or not, or pressure the Federal Reserve to loosen the money supply in order to help his party win the next election, Trump’s attacks on Obama were the purest form of projection. They reflect his cynical belief that every president will naturally abuse their powers, and thus provide a roadmap to his own intentions.

And indeed, Trump immediately followed the killing of Qasem Soleimani by metaphorically wrapping himself in the stars and stripes. No doubt he anticipates at least a faint echo of the rally-around-the-flag dynamic that has buoyed many of his predecessors. But Trump’s critics need not assume he will enjoy any such benefit, and should grasp that their own response will help determine it.

One salient fact is that it’s not 2001, or even 2003. A poll earlier this summer found that just 18 percent of Americans prefer to “take military action against Iran” as against 78 percent wanting to “rely mainly on economic and diplomatic efforts.”

What Blows Up Must Come Down by Nancy Ohanian

It is in part due to public war weariness that Republicans have sworn repeatedly, for years, that they would not go to war with Iran. The possibility of such a military escalation was precisely the central dispute between the parties when the Obama administration struck its nuclear deal. “Without a deal, we risk even more war in the Middle East,” argued President Obama. Republicans furiously insisted this was “absurd.” War has “never been the alternative,” said Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell in 2015, “It’s not this deal versus war... It’s either this deal or a better deal, or more sanctions.” The conservative Heritage Foundation argued that blocking Obama’s deal “makes the likelihood of war or a conventional and regional nuclear arms race less likely.”

And as Trump mulled following through on his threat to abrogate the deal, conservatives furiously denied that doing so would lead to military conflict. Here is former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren writing in the New York Times two years ago:

“The only alternative to the Iran nuclear deal is war.” That is what the Obama administration and proponents of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran claimed in 2015. Nobody in the Middle East believed that the United States would ever strike Iran, but enough Americans did that the deal went through... The alternative was never war, but a better deal.

Oren further insisted that fears the international community would refuse to follow America’s lead by canceling the deal, and that Iran would limit nuclear inspections, would both fail to materialize. “Now they predict that the international community will not follow America’s lead in withdrawing from the deal and reimposing sanctions. Worse, they warn, Iran might use the opportunity to evict United Nations inspectors and ramp up its nuclear program,” he wrote, “All of these assumptions are false.”

In fact, these assumptions have proven true. American allies have stayed in the agreement and refused to reimpose sanctions, and Iran has started restricting inspectors and begun restarting its nuclear program.

Trump’s allies have framed the issue as being about Qasem Soleimani’s moral culpability, or Iran’s responsibility for escalating the conflict. And it is certainly true that Iran is a nasty, aggressive, murderous regime. But none of this refutes the fact that Trump’s Iran policy is failing on its own terms. Having violated a diplomatic agreement on the premise that doing so would not lead to war, they are now blaming Iran for the war they insisted would never happen.

Americans historically support their presidents in foreign conflicts, both the wise ones and unwise ones alike, at least initially. Trump no doubt believes the halo effect will last at least through November-- that he might undertake an action that would harm his reelection out of some larger sense of duty to the nation or the world is unfathomable.

But presidents traditionally benefit from a presumption of competence, or at least moral legitimacy, from their opposition. Trump has forfeited his. He will not have Democratic leaders standing shoulder to shoulder with him, and his practice of disregarding and smearing government intelligence should likewise dispel any benefit of the doubt attached to claims he makes about the necessity of his actions. Trump has made it plain that he views American war-fighting as nothing but the extension of domestic politics. We should believe him.

Friday, Bernie and Ro issued the following statement announcing the introduction of legislation to prohibit any funding for offensive military force in or against Iran without prior congressional authorization. The measure to restrict funds for such military activities passed by a bipartisan, 251-margin vote in the House of Representatives, but was later stripped from the National Defense Authorization Act adopted by Congress in December: 

Today, we are seeing a dangerous escalation that brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East. A war with Iran could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars and lead to even more deaths, more conflict, more displacement in that already highly volatile region of the world.

War must be the last recourse in our international relations. That is why our Founding Fathers gave the responsibility over war to Congress. Congressional inaction in the face of the threat of a catastrophic and unconstitutional Middle East conflict is not acceptable.

After authorizing a disastrous, $738 billion military budget that placed no restrictions on this president from starting an unauthorized war with Iran, Congress now has an opportunity to change course. Our legislation blocks Pentagon funding for any unilateral actions this president takes to wage war against Iran without Congressional authorization.

We know that it will ultimately be the children of working-class families who will have to fight and die in a new Middle East conflict—not the children of the billionaire class. At a time when we face the urgent need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, to build the housing we desperately need, and to address the existential crisis of climate change, we as a nation must get our priorities right. The House and Senate should pass our legislation immediately and uphold our constitutional responsibilities. We must invest in the needs of the American people, not spend trillions more on endless wars.

You may have already seen those three asshole-on-parade tweets (above) last night, when the crazy Orange Pig Man, drunk on his power to destroy, issued them. I may be wrong about this, but I thought targeting sites of cultural significance was a war crime. If Trump does that, will Congress share the guilt? They deserve to-- except for the small handful who don't. You know what would be… interesting? Suppose Iran puts out a press release saying they know their enemy is the Orange Asshole, not the American people... just as they launch a coordinated series of attacks against Trump properties all over the world. If they knocked out some Trump golf courses and towers, they’d hurt their tormentor where it counts-- in his purse. And how would Trump explain using the U.S. military because of an Iranian attack on a couple of golf course in Dubai? Or Trump Towers in Pune, Mumbai and Kolkata in India and there's one in Manila… and maybe a Daewoo Trump World apartment building. And Turnberry. Put the mutha out of business. Better if they do it without any lose of innocent life, another way of showing Trump up for the narcissistic sociopath that he is.

Welcome to Dubai

Michael Franken is the progressive running for the Democratic Senate nomination in Iowa for the seat Joni Ernst is wasting. Until recently, though, he was an Admiral. I asked him about this mess last night. "Iran’s General Soleimani was the second or third most important official in Iran; killing him in a directed strike, of questionable legality, will generate a response from Iran and its proxies that will cause more loss of life. My biggest fear with this Administration is coming of age-- an expanded conflict in the Middle East. In any event in the Middle East, one must view the history leading up to the present. If our history begins in the 1950s, 1979, or the beginning of the Trump Administration, the one event that precipitated the current conflict with Iran is the withdrawal from the JCPOA nuclear agreement. That was a Trump feel-good moment without an underpinning of a strategic plan, a common refrain of this Administration. There are no winners in a conflict with 85 million Persians, excluding the Russians, maybe the Chinese, and certainly some Gulf neighbors. This will not go well. Iran is not Iraq, or Syria, or Libya, as detailed simulations and war games have proven. We cannot let waifish populist politics at home drive international relations. It is past time to demand a steadier hand on the tiller."