> As with Trump demanding “unconditional surrender” at the start of the war, the administration seems to think verbal references to historical American triumphs will yield similarly positive results, despite very different circumstances.
Lying won't fix the strait of Hormuz, but I do think it yields "positive results": a 38% approval rating instead of 8%. If lying didn't work, he wouldn't have won a second term, let alone an approval rating that is positively stratospheric compared to what he deserves. Now, I think that 38% is primarily a matter of having a giant "conservative" (but actually Republican) media ecosystem propping him up, but that ecosystem does need Trump to keep feeding them juicy, if untrue, talking points to repeat.
For a time, perhaps. Though it's in spite of the negative consequences of the war, not because he's been successful at spinning them.
Either way, that's not sustainable, as his continuing-to-decline polls show. And it doesn't look like it'll be nearly enough to rescue his party in the midterms.
There is one option that he hasn't seriously considered. Just picking up his toys and going home. Let our allies in the region pick up the pieces to get the oil flowing again. Let the Netanyahto Regime fight its own war.
Trump can blame Obama for the horrible disastrous JCPOA of 2015 that he, the greatest genius of all time had to tear up. He can blame weak Sleepy Joe Biden for failing to force Iran to accept a new deal just like he failed to carry out the brilliant withdrawal plan that he had brilliantly negotiated with the Taliban that he totally had eating out of his hand. His "military action" was never a war. It was all Israel's fault but Iran has learned its lesson and there is a great secret real estate development plan in the works, to be announced in two weeks, that will make the whole region GREAT again. Thanks for your attention to this matter! Stay tuned!
That's impossible. Trump can't end the war and declare it a success because Iran gets a big say too, and they have more to gain by pressing their advantage. No matter what Trump says or does, Iran isn't about to let commercial shipping through Hormuz outside of their control, the Houthis aren't about to stop attacking in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and the global energy market won't stop being disrupted. Trump has already tried pretending all that's not a problem, and it failed.
Excellent summary of where we are with the Iran war, and why.
The author crisply shows how our U.S. president's basic lack of insight or strategy, beyond bluster and bullying, is creating yet another tragoc mess around the world.
As someone who has beloved relatives and friends in Iran, I also appreciate the author's evoking the personal tragedies of war 'mistakes.'
> As with Trump demanding “unconditional surrender” at the start of the war, the administration seems to think verbal references to historical American triumphs will yield similarly positive results, despite very different circumstances.
Lying won't fix the strait of Hormuz, but I do think it yields "positive results": a 38% approval rating instead of 8%. If lying didn't work, he wouldn't have won a second term, let alone an approval rating that is positively stratospheric compared to what he deserves. Now, I think that 38% is primarily a matter of having a giant "conservative" (but actually Republican) media ecosystem propping him up, but that ecosystem does need Trump to keep feeding them juicy, if untrue, talking points to repeat.
For a time, perhaps. Though it's in spite of the negative consequences of the war, not because he's been successful at spinning them.
Either way, that's not sustainable, as his continuing-to-decline polls show. And it doesn't look like it'll be nearly enough to rescue his party in the midterms.
Thanks for this powerful summary.
There is one option that he hasn't seriously considered. Just picking up his toys and going home. Let our allies in the region pick up the pieces to get the oil flowing again. Let the Netanyahto Regime fight its own war.
Trump can blame Obama for the horrible disastrous JCPOA of 2015 that he, the greatest genius of all time had to tear up. He can blame weak Sleepy Joe Biden for failing to force Iran to accept a new deal just like he failed to carry out the brilliant withdrawal plan that he had brilliantly negotiated with the Taliban that he totally had eating out of his hand. His "military action" was never a war. It was all Israel's fault but Iran has learned its lesson and there is a great secret real estate development plan in the works, to be announced in two weeks, that will make the whole region GREAT again. Thanks for your attention to this matter! Stay tuned!
That's impossible. Trump can't end the war and declare it a success because Iran gets a big say too, and they have more to gain by pressing their advantage. No matter what Trump says or does, Iran isn't about to let commercial shipping through Hormuz outside of their control, the Houthis aren't about to stop attacking in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and the global energy market won't stop being disrupted. Trump has already tried pretending all that's not a problem, and it failed.
Excellent summary of where we are with the Iran war, and why.
The author crisply shows how our U.S. president's basic lack of insight or strategy, beyond bluster and bullying, is creating yet another tragoc mess around the world.
As someone who has beloved relatives and friends in Iran, I also appreciate the author's evoking the personal tragedies of war 'mistakes.'
Thanks for this insightful article.