Tonight President Trump ordered a strike on the Baghdad airport that killed a top Iranian general, Qassim Suleimani, along with an Iraqi militia leader. Many experts say that this is an act of war, and Iran is sure to retaliate, as are Iraqi militias. The entire region is said to be on edge from Syria to Lebanon to Israel, fearing a “potential massive regional war,” as Sen. Chris Murphy warns.
The central political question about the assassination is, Why would a president who calls himself antiwar take such a huge risk in an election year?
Donald Trump is running for reelection as an antiwar candidate. He lately gave a speech in which he called the Iraq war “the single worst mistake this country has ever made,” slammed the “military industrial complex,” and told a wrenching story about watching the military coffins being wheeled down off the planes at Dover and family members throwing themselves on the caskets. Trump spoke of never ending wars:
These wars, they never end. And we have to bring our great soldiers back from the never-ending wars.
Tonight Trump damaged his hopes for reelection, Sina Toossi of the National Iranian American Council says.
Trump thinks he got his Bin Laden moment in an election year. In reality, he’s made the worst strategic mistake by an American leader since the Iraq invasion. The consequences will be felt for years to come. Ensuing quagmire will damage US global position & his reelection chances
I want to believe that Toossi is right, but Trump is as shrewd as they come and I don’t think he acted to endanger his political fortunes, but to enhance them.
Look at who is pleased by the attack, Israel. Israel’s top general has lately declared that some wars are good, and Israel may need to strike civilian targets in Lebanon to set back Hezbollah, the Iranian ally. Even “Peace Now” praises U.S. aggression. The first expert quoted in the New York Times coverage of the attack is Israel lobbyist Mark Dubowitz, and he is very happy.
“This is devastating for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the regime and [Supreme Leader Ayatollah] Khamenei’s regional ambitions… For 23 years, [Suleimani] has been the equivalent of the J.S.O.C. commander [Joint Special Operations Command], the C.I.A. director and Iran’s real foreign minister,” Mr. Dubowitz said… “He is irreplaceable and indispensable” to Iran’s military establishment.
No doubt Sheldon Adelson, Trump’s biggest donor at well over $100 million to Republican causes, is also pleased by the strike. Six years ago we broke the news that Adelson called on Obama to hit Iran with a nuclear strike. Adelson said at Yeshiva University in New York:
What are we going to negotiate about? I would say ‘Listen, you see that desert out there, I want to show you something.’ …You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say, ‘OK let it go.’ And so there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic missiles, the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul. Maybe a couple of rattlesnakes, and scorpions, or whatever. Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development.
These days Adelson gets to make such arguments right into the president’s ear.
Trump knew just what he was doing tonight, and he saw it as enhancing his reelection hopes– even if it means more American coffins coming off planes.
Eli Clifton agrees; this is a transactional president. And Cory Booker was on MSNBC tonight (and CNN too) talking about how this would affect Israel. He’s running for president too…
Nothing about Israel on the cables and in the New York Times, though.
h/t James North and Scott Roth.
This could be a case of “wag the dog”, or Trump doing what he said Obama might do – start a war to win an election.
Bush and Cheney’s unnecessary war on Iraq saw serious consequences, and a negative domino effect in the region, which we can see still today. Trump, without the approval of Congress has taken upon himself to attack an Iranian official, which could result in a WORSE situation for the region, and for US interests. Only Israel and Saudi Arabia will cheer him on.
The republicans will blindly support him, and will also be responsible for the consequences.
What goes around usually comes around.
You are right, Trump wouldn’t go along if his re-election were endangered.
He’s not necessarily seeing the war as improving his image with his own voters, though. There may well be a deal with the alphabet-soup agencies, the Pentagon and/or other Democrat-leaning state apparatus to stop the endless coup d’État and help Trump win, in exchange for war.
Heck, it may even be already implemented: after all, the single most effective re-election help for Trump thus far has been his impeachment, which consolidates and regroups his own voter base and beyond.
His votes may increase substantially from another stratum, though, now that he started one major war for the Zionists: many of the Democrat rank and file, primed as they are for war of aggression by four years of deep state-fed screaming hysteria, may well turn around: the idle talk I hear at my coffee-shop (99% liberal Democrats, zip code oblige) invariably faults him mostly for not starting war. Russia, Syria, Korea or Iran, they aren’t particular about the choice of enemy — their kids are safe. Manufactured consent is ready and primed.
Why?
To pander to his ignorant, fawning Republican base and curry further favor with Sheldon Adelson, his multi-billionaire, Iran hating, war mongering, Zionist zealot paymaster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=6sCW4IasWXc
Short video, Oct. 25, 2013, discussion between rabid Zionists, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Sheldon Adelson. Adelson declares – “Attack Iran with an atomic bomb”
The U.S. is a “shining beacon” of hypocrisy and (war) criminality, much like its “shared common values” partner, Israel.
Trump did something to please Israel and his Zionist backers and Israel and his Zionist backers are pleased. I fail to see the shrewdness.
According to Dickhead Donald ,the worlds leading major historian and war statistician, Suleimani was “responsible for millions of deaths”:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-january-3-2020/
And coming from a “stable genius” this must be right mustn`t it ? Puts him right up there with the likes of Hitler,Stalin and Pol Pot.
I think the bone spurs have finally reached what there was of his brain.