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‘What is Trump’s motivation to be provocative with Iran?’ Pelosi asks– and the answer is Adelson

Yesterday Nancy Pelosi asked a very pointed question on CNN, Why is Trump threatening a war with Iran?

[W]hat is his motivation? What is their motivation to be provocative with the Iranians? Why did the president turn his back on the Iranian nuclear agreement? What’s the logic except some other issue — that it was negotiated by President Obama? We had so many national security experts, whether they were ambassadors, generals, admirals and all the rest supporting the agreement as well, so it had official, diplomatic, national security, technical, nuclear, et cetera support along the way. So why?

So, then he comes in and does — undoes that and inflames the U.S.-Iran issue. Why? What is the purpose?… I think he probably knows there’s no appetite for war among the American people.

There seems to me a very obvious answer to this question. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson. Adelson called on the last president, Barack Obama, to nuke Iran in 2013 rather than negotiate with Iran, and Obama ignored the advice. But Trump can’t ignore Adelson. Adelson and his wife Miriam gave $177 million to Donald Trump’s campaign and Republican causes in 2016-2018, making them his biggest donors by far; and Trump surely regards Adelson as his best hope for securing a second term, and for keeping him out of jail, too…

The president is famously transactional; and I believe that $177 million explains Trump giving the Adelsons, who love Israel, one gift after another, from moving the Embassy, to defunding UNRWA, to recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, to destroying the Iran deal. If only Russia had such influence! No wonder Trump is said to be considering a “tactical” assault on Iran. A lot like the “tactical” nuke Adelson pushed in 2013.

I could be wrong, but that’s my best answer to Pelosi. And the real tragedy here is that Pelosi’s question hangs in the air like that and neither she nor Fareed Zakaria can state what to me seems obvious. Evidently that would be anti-Semitic. Like saying that George Soros directs Democrats. You can’t breathe a word about Zionist influence.

This silence perfectly echoes the silence 16 years ago when people asked, Why did we go into Iraq? How did that serve the American people? Back then many of us thought that the right wing of the Israel lobby, the neoconservatives, drove that decision and got a lot of liberal interventionists who also conflated Israeli and American interests to go along. Tom Friedman said that the neocons got us into the war, and he regurgitated their ideas, saying we needed to respond to a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv by smashing something in an Arab capital, and it was time for the Arabs to “suck on this.” (Another question popular at that time was: Why do they hate us?)

But you were not allowed to mention the Israel lobby’s interest; and that silence led to one of the most important interventions in the discourse when Walt and Mearsheimer published The Israel Lobby in 2006, a book that was redlined as anti-Semitic for its argument that we wouldn’t have had an Iraq war without the rightwing lobby, an argument a lot of people privately agreed with, including Joe Klein and David Corn and Philip Zelikow (the former Bush aide who said, “The threat that dare not speak its name” was Iraq’s threat to Israel). Jeffrey Goldberg made sure to run Walt and Mearsheimer out of town with a simple imprecation, They say that Jews start all wars, and that was that.

Today others surely have other answers to Pelosi’s question than Adelson. But the pity is that the Israel influence factor can’t be discussed and debated.

Adelson ought to be on the front pages now. Politicians should be calling out the Adelsons’ influence the same way Elizabeth Warren campaigns against the Koch Brothers. They ought to be mocking the fact that Trump gave Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom right alongside Babe Ruth and Elvis. They should point out that National Security Adviser John Bolton is yet another gift to the Trump administration from Adelson. They ought to note that Adelson wished he fought in an Israeli uniform not an American one. They ought to say that Sheldon Adelson tried to kill the peace process under George W. Bush and Bush said he couldn’t do what Netanyahu wanted, telling Adelson, “I can’t be more Catholic than the Pope.” Trump doesn’t feel that prohibition.

The media should point out the connections between Adelson and Netanyahu– whom Trump has all but campaigned for. They should point out that Netanyahu’s political coalition came apart in 2015 over favors he was trying to do to Adelson’s newspaper, leading to a new election. At least the Israelis can talk about it! But here Trump is bending over backwards the same way, and the Adelsons aren’t on the front page.

Years ago Trump lambasted an opponent for the Republican nomination — “Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!” Those words were prophetic. Too bad the media don’t seem to care.

Thanks to James North.

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RE: “Yesterday Nancy Pelosi asked a very pointed question on CNN, Why is Trump threatening a war with Iran? . . . Today others surely have other answers to Pelosi’s question than Adelson.” ~ Weiss

FOR INSTANCE, SEE: “Pompeo, End Times, and False Flag War on Iran” | by Jon Basil Utley | antiwar.com | June 17, 2019

[EXCERPT] . . . Trump now says he does not want war with Iran. But he is surrounded by advisors who do. Both Secretary of State Pompeo and Vice President Pence are profound end times Evangelicals. In 2017 I wrote, Iraq, Syria, Iran…Are We To Destroy Iran Next? about the original neo-conservative program to re-mold the Middle East. A main new concern is Trump’s Secretary of State’s strong evangelical beliefs in the end times. The NY Times describes his beliefs in The Rapture and the Real World: Pompeo Blends Belief and Policy. The belief is that a stronger and greater Israel will bring about Armageddon sooner and their rapture straight to heaven without a judgment day. Not all evangelicals are in this camp, e.g. see below about Jimmy Carter, but rather an important sector who moved from forecasting Armageddon to trying to bring it about. Destroying Iran’s being a threat to Israel is thus seen as helping God’s intentions…

ENTIRE COMMENTARY – https://original.antiwar.com/utley/2019/06/16/pompeo-end-times-and-false-flag-war-on-iran/

Phil’s analysis and opinion dovetail with mine to a point. Keeping powerful allies like the lobby and Adelson in his corner is strong calculus in politics where money and power are major calculations. My best GUESS is Trump is a master manipulator and is perfectly capable of turning on anyone. And he knows they can turn on him. As he said, “Jews always flip” and as we know, so can he. I’ll venture he knows well, and factored in,that Israelis have been master manipulators of American Presidents. https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/09/how-israel-out-foxed-us-presidents-4/

I am aware most observers do not agree Trump’s motive is resolving the Question of Palestine. I reason his superego, and focus on America First, want’s to achieve what no other President has, even though all have tried. Note how they have ALL put pro-Israel people in key positions, ie. Dennis Ross. Kissing up has been the political approach forever now.

I see him giving one present after another to Israel to ingratiate himself and to make it more difficult to rebuke him when the crunch time comes. Note the leaked document to Yisrael Hayom said he was prepared to cut all aid to Israel. Read that again!

Knowing his decision to move the embassy, recognizing Jewish rights in Jerusalem, something most recognize as a given in any conceivable agreement, would stir the pot. He said, “In making these announcements, I also want to make one point very clear: This decision is not intended, in any way, to reflect a departure from our strong commitment to facilitate a lasting peace agreement. We want an agreement that is a great deal for the Israelis and a great deal for the Palestinians. We are not taking a position of any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the resolution of contested borders. Those questions are up to the parties involved.”

Unfortunately, Palestinians are so overwhelmed with their victimhood and ignorant of American politics, they couldn’t fathom the bigger picture and went ballistic, possibly scuttling the entire agreement. Without their engagement, a deal cannot be made and Trump has to keep kissing up.

I reason his take on Iran was ingratiating himself and positioning himself to not only achieve the “Deal of the Century” but peace in the ME, an objective he set for his second term, making him the greatest of all time. My prediction is after he holds talks with Iran, he comes away saying, “We can work together.” Thanks to Abbas, this is now less likely and now war more so.

I maintain Trump is not a warmonger, but he keeps warmongers around him to purchase protection from Adelson, Netanyahu and the Deep State. North Korea is a model to watch. Consider we are not at war with Iran or Venezuela.

Pelosi is a liar. The socalled ‘deal’ had no congressional support until Obama worked his way around congress. Then the democrats stood behind him. She is as phony as any other partisan politician on the hill.

And ironic that she should wonder what possible motivation trump might have to “provoke” Iran when obama and his echo man rhodes never explained to the American people why shifting power to the mullahs was in the interests of the US.

The left. In love with every two bit revolutionary liberation regime from Castro to Khamanei but always have hatred for zionism as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. That is their original sin. Their portrait of Dorian Grey. Zionism has its own problems to deal with but it’s not simply going to commit suicide and then go away. So called liberal zionists are the biggest hypocrites of the whole left wing

→ The president is famously transactional; and I believe that $177 million explains Trump giving the Adelsons, who love Israel, one gift after another, from moving the Embassy, to defunding UNRWA, to recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, to destroying the Iran deal.

Public policy based on private advantage. Wonderful.

→ it was time for the Arabs to “suck on this.”

Frank vulgarity in the service of imperialism.

→ They ought to be mocking the fact that Trump gave Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom right alongside Babe Ruth and Elvis.

Really? Freedom? For knocking a baseball around, crooning tacky songs, and promoting Zionist oppression?

Concise, insightful article; I hope it gets passed around social media platforms.