TRUMP WANTS CREDIT FOR WHAT? A DISASTROUS WAR AND ANOTHER CON JOB?

Dr. Common Good

I will give Trump credit for one thing – a consistent and wildly demented ability to repeat, over and over, a glaring web of lies and phantasmagorical assertions about anything. Such is the case with respect to the utterly unnecessary “Iran war,” which (as detailed in previous posts) Trump initiated out of some puerile power fantasy, egged on by the cynical Netanyahu, taken up by the juvenile crusader Hegseth “in the name of God,” and untethered to any tangible reality. A tragic, dangerous cartoon, rolling before us like a surrealist film loop.

The war, he opined in a recent appearance, was “going swimmingly,” and he urged Americans to congratulate him on a “job well done,” like a little boy asking the teacher for a shiny stick-on star even though he really didn’t complete the assignment. Iran, he gloated, had agreed to everything he wanted.

Ahhh, Donald. Lying again. Trying to create a reality for himself by talking it into existence — as usual, at the expense of everyone and everything else.  

American people of all political stripes, if not already dubious about his claims, need to stop indulging this, or believing any of it. This war, which Trump started without any actual reason other than his own vanity, is a disaster, for Americans, for the people of Iran, for our alliances worldwide, and for our credibility as a worthy nation.

Iran did not agree to open the Strait of Hormuz under any condition or never to close it again. Iran did not agree to turn over its enriched uranium stockpile. And the Trump administration has even considered releasing $20 billion in frozen Iranian assets – by the way, more than ten times the amount of assets that the Obama administration included in its 2015 deal.

At best — and this needs to be underscored — at best, Trump’s disaster and destruction will produce a result that is significantly worse than the landmark, successful deal negotiated by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry over several years, accomplished by careful and intelligent diplomacy, with no war, no casualties and the creation of a system to monitor compliance. Trump’s disaster, on the other hand, has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties, billions of dollars needlessly spent (that could have helped fund health care and housing), a massive disruption in energy prices, a change in the status of the Strait of Hormuz which, until Trump’s war was fully open, a giant hit to the national debt, and another giant hit to our alliance relationships and standing in the world community. 

And yet his twisted attempts to fabricate a grandiose reality persist. Now he is re-directing his maniacal gaze towards Cuba, claiming that he will “take Cuba in some form” after he “does Iran.” At that point, will any Republicans in Congress have the sense to stop this?