The Downward Spiral of an Unwell Mind

Update: Many thanks to Tengrain for including this article at Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Stay safe this Thanksgiving season and remember to avoid turkey drops around the Cincinnati metro...

As a follow-up to the earlier observations about the overwhelming Blue Wave election cycle a few weeks back, there's been more stories in a number of Beltway Media outlets about donald trump's overall behavior since then.

None of it looks good. (via Elyse Wanshel at HuffPost)

On Thursday’s episode of Shane Gillis and Matt McCusker’s podcast, the comedians compared the president to his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, while discussing Trump’s cognitive state.

“You think he’s getting dementia?” McCusker asked his co-host Gillis about Trump.

“I mean, I don’t know. He just seems a little slower than usual,” Gillis responded. “There’s speculation that T-Dog might be rocking Biden brains,” McCusker added.

“He’s definitely not at Biden brains yet,” Gillis replied. “But he’s circling the drain...”

The comedians’ remarks about Trump were prompted amid a longer conversation regarding the president telling Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey to be “quiet, piggy” onboard Air Force One earlier this week. Trump said this to Lucey after she asked him a question about the Jeffrey Epstein files...

Regarding trump's insulting behavior last Friday, Rachel Leingang at The Guardian noted how the response outpaced the mainstream media's tepid underplaying of it:

It wasn’t the first time – not even the hundredth time – the US president has attacked the media. And it’s hard for any storyline to break through the administration’s “flood the zone” strategy, much less one like this. Nothing seems to stick. But the “quiet, piggy” clip has taken off, several days after the admonishment occurred on Air Force One last Friday, and without much help from the media itself...

Trump is going through a string of losses: Democrats dominating in off-year elections, having to reverse course on the Epstein files, Republicans refusing to get rid of the filibuster to end the shutdown, a faltering economy. There’s a possibility that he’s losing his air of impenetrability, and his grip on the right could maybe, just maybe, be loosening.

The anger he displayed in the clip could be a sign of someone on the back foot, overreacting to a question Bloomberg correspondent Catherine Lucey was asking about why Trump was fighting against releasing the Epstein files “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”. The files related to the child sexual abuser released so far by Congress show that Epstein communicated regularly, and derogatorily, about women with a host of prominent friends...

It's not so much that trump was losing control of keeping the Epstein scandal under a tighter wrap. It's not so much that trump is walking back some of his beloved tariffs as their impact on goods worsened the economy for most Americans. It's not so much that trump is angry with the legal system pushing back against his deportation agenda, against his eagerness to deploy troops into our own cities, and against his attempts to charge his perceived enemies - such as former FBI Director James Comey - that are falling apart due to prosecutorial screw-ups (serving his whims, no less). 

It's that there's this unsettling realization that everything in TrumpWorld (tm) is falling apart, and breaking into pieces faster than anyone thought it would (via Kyle Cheney at Politico):

But the extraordinary rebukes and headwinds the president is now facing — much of it from within his own party — are revealing a GOP beginning to reckon with a post-Trump future. That dynamic crystallized after voters surged to the polls to support Democratic candidates for statewide races in New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia and Pennsylvania, shattering expectations of close contests and signaling that even Trump can’t defy political gravity forever.

Trump has spent the days since recycling old grievances, berating members of his own party and choosing sides in a burgeoning intra-MAGA debate about antisemitism and bigotry within the GOP coalition...

A year ago, the idea that a Republican-led Congress would vote overwhelmingly in favor of anything Trump opposed would have been fanciful. Enter the Epstein files.

Trump’s coalition has long viewed the FBI’s trove of records related to the late convicted sex offender and disgraced international power broker to be a holy grail of sorts, one that could shed light on a grander sex trafficking conspiracy implicating world leaders and politicians. But Trump, a longtime associate of Epstein’s until they fell out more than a decade ago, spent the summer leaning on congressional Republicans to cease their search for records. Trump has denied wrongdoing and no evidence has suggested he took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation...

The problems with trump's denials are 1) There is too much physical and eyewitness evidence that showed trump and Epstein close enough for trump to be aware of - and revel in - the shocking number of young girls in those circles; 2) trump himself expressed far too often an "appreciation" for young women that included allegations he spied on Miss Teen contestants in their dressing rooms; and 3) the reality now established that Mr. "Grab 'Em By the Pussy" is a court-confirmed sexual predator with dozens of other sexual assault claims still out there.

That trump used the Epstein scandal in the 2024 campaign to attack Democrats was just another brazen Deflection strategy that the Far Right have perfected: Accuse the Democrats of committing those crimes you yourself are committing, and turn that weakness into a strength. But trump promised to "expose the truth" about Epstein's sex trafficking of girls to the one group - his own QAnon conspiracy base - he shouldn't have, and they wanted trump to fulfill that once he got back into the White House. Problem was, trump's solution wasn't to release more documents but rehash the ones already released and pretend that was it... which only made things look worse for him and his lackeys for "covering up".

trump's attempts to control that narrative - one that kept painting him and his Republican allies as "pro-Sex Offender" - kept failing, because once his gaslighting fails he's got nothing else to go by:

What happened next was perhaps the most stinging intra-party rebuke of Trump’s presidency. Trump tried and failed to pressure Republican lawmakers to pull the plug on a vote demanding the Justice Department turn over the full library of Epstein files. An intense pressure campaign against Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) in particular went nowhere.

The fallout also claimed the relationship of Trump and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose refusal to flinch led Trump to brand her a “traitor” and attempt to turn his coalition against her. Greene has responded by saying Trump’s attacks have endangered her life...

While trump's press people are defending him for "his honesty and transparency" nobody's going to forget how trump fought this for months. And no amount of scrubbing the files before release is going to hide the reality that trump and Epstein were two peas in the same vulgar pod.

Trump’s inability to cajole Congress into his preferred course of action on the Epstein files came at virtually the same time the president and his allies failed to move Indiana Republicans to redraw their congressional boundaries to net Republicans another seat in the 2026 midterms.

Trump had been pressing for a Hoosier redistricting measure for months, but state GOP leaders signaled they simply lacked the votes to make it a reality, drawing a threat from Trump to endorse some Republicans’ primary challengers. Countermeasures by Democrats in Virginia and California could make Trump’s nationwide push a wash.

It's not helping trump that the earlier successful attempt to gerrymander Texas - on trump's public orders - is falling apart in the courts as well. trump's inability to win in the courts is hurting him on other key issues like his beloved tariffs policy:

Trump has long proclaimed that wielding tariffs against foreign governments is the key to negotiating favorable trade deals. Never mind that business and Republican orthodoxy has long considered tariffs as a backdoor tax on Americans.

But the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of Trump’s approach, with justices he appointed sharply questioning whether the president can leverage emergency powers to tariff foreign governments at will. By all accounts, the argument was a drubbing for Trump’s side. And the president seemed to discover that reality when he vented at the court in a pair of Truth Social posts last week.

It’s folly to predict how the high court will rule, even when the justices send clear signals during the arguments. But Trump appears to be bracing for defeat that could have devastating consequences for his economic agenda. His administration has repeatedly emphasized the centrality of tariffs to the recent spate of trade deals he’s made around the world.

trump arguably can craft economic / trade deals across the globe without the threat or use of tariffs anyway. What's hurting him is how he worships the idea of tariffs: trump genuinely believes tariffs can work, and that he needs them as tools to bully / enforce his will upon others. Of any potential legal defeats trump is facing in the White House, this could well be the one that angers him the most.

It's that anger - that rage trump carries with a scowl and a sneer, always driven by slights imagined and real, the willingness to lash out in public without concern or civility, the open cruelty towards those he views (Women, Blacks, poor) his lessers - that's troubling. trump's never had much self-control over his Id, his narcissistic drive to humiliate others, even during his first tenure as President National Destroyer of Norms and the Rule of Law. Five years later, he's gotten older and gotten worse (via Tom Nichols at the Atlantic):

Presidents often lose control over their agenda, or the policy process, or pieces of legislation. Sometimes, they even lose control of their party. But Donald Trump seems to have lost control over the one thing every person, and especially those with immense power, should always maintain control over: himself. Yesterday the president called for the arrest and execution of elected American officials for the crime—as he sees it—of fidelity to the Constitution.

It would be easy merely to note, yet again, that the president is a depraved man and a menace to the American system of government. As remarkable as it is to say it, however, the outbursts of this past week are different, and were likely triggered by Trump’s panic over the release of files about his former friend, the dead sex offender Jeffery Epstein. No one should treat this new phase in the president’s aggression against democracy as just another episode in the Trump reality show...

The president was already showing strain before his attack on the legislators. Last Friday, he lashed out at a female journalist who asked about the Epstein files, calling her “piggy.” (Trump seems to revel in getting away with speaking to women as president in ways that would land him on the sidewalk back in Queens.) On Tuesday, as he sat next to the Saudi crown prince, a man credibly accused by U.S. intelligence of murdering an American journalist, he lashed out at yet another female reporter: He called Mary Bruce of ABC “insubordinate”—a rather telling choice of words—and threatened to use the FCC to attack her network. Tuesday, of course, was the day the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed the House by a vote of 427–1. The next day, it passed the Senate by unanimous consent, and a humiliated Trump signed the bill into law.

Yesterday, Trump seemed to lose the last bit of his grip on his emotions as he fired off a fusillade of Truth Social posts. (“Trump must not have slept well Wednesday night,” Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger of The Bulwark observed today.) “This is really bad,” the president wrote, “and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”

“Lock them up” is a favorite Trump chant, but he did not end with this classic demand. He went on: “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.” The charge, according to the chief executive? “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” He also reposted a comment that said: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”

Anyone with a basic understanding of U.S. history would remember George Washington never hanged political opponents: when he was rebuffed by the Senate the one time he visited Congress, Washington merely stormed out and swore to never go back. But this is trump raging at us today: Terrible at history, and desperate to lie that other great figures in history would do what he'd want to do.

Trump’s posts risk putting the lives of American lawmakers in danger, and he almost certainly knows it. Many people who have publicly criticized the president have found themselves getting death threats from his most fervid followers. (Like many Trump-critical writers, I started getting them years ago.) As Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former MAGA doyenne from Georgia whom Trump has now marked as a heretic, wrote on X last week, “A hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world.” Senator Elissa Slotkin revealed that she is now traveling with a security detail because of what she called “a huge spike” in threats that came to her office after Trump’s eruption yesterday.

This is the same trump who stirred up MAGA supporters to riot at the Capitol on January 6th, the event that trump and his lackeys would like to erase from history, but an act of violence that trump himself would love to revisit on the nation again and again.

A lot of this turns back on that earlier observation from the podcast bros openly wondering "is trump falling into dementia?" It's a serious concern, and it's one a lot of Biden supporters shouted back at the media when they went after Joe for his slowed delivery of speeches and lapse of memory. trump wasn't that much younger than Biden, and in spite of all the public announcements that trump is the "fittest smartest human being of all time" (uh, no) a lot of people could see by 2024 he'd gotten more unsteady on his feet and more prone to brain farts on stage.

There's been more speculation than usual in the past few months that there's serious health concerns: a questionable MRI exam six months after getting one; a missing weekend where trump came back with odd bruising on his hands; trump wandering away during a visit to Japan; falling asleep during an Oval Office presentation, during which someone else collapsed and trump failed to take notice of it at all.

Far be it to speculate or cast rumors, but there is too much growing evidence that trump's questionable lifelong habits - and time itself - is racing up to claim his ticket. It doesn't help that a number of actions trump is ordering on the hurry - such as bulldozing down the East Wing to build his own ballroom, or the insistence of getting a Peace Prize in spite of his bullying tactics, or the release of a new dollar coin (which historically never worked out for Americans) with HIS face on it - a blatant middle finger to the unwritten rule to avoid putting a living person on American money - are obvious clues that he wants to enjoy all of this - fake symbols of his "greatness" - before he no longer can.

You can feel a sense of panic, of things not going well behind the scenes, with this administration this time around. More than just the level of idiocy and ineptitude from the actions they've taken to break the Constitution and the nation for their own interests.

It doesn't help that as I'm typing this, trump's Defense Dept (fuck the name change, Pete) is staging naval and air maneuvers off the coast of Venezuela. They're making more public calls to strike drug cartel locations - not just Venezuela but also Mexico - as part of an "anti-terrorist" campaign that they can't prove. Like as though trump wants a military victory and another half-assed parade before his mind gives out altogether.

And nobody in a position to do anything about it - not the Democrats because they're out of power, but the Republicans in Congress and in the Cabinet - will lift a finger, because they dare not face the rage of a rabid MAGA base. They're perfectly content to let this farce play out, and carve out whatever they can get in the ensuing chaos.

Stay safe, America. Keep protesting in the streets against trump's war on anyone dark-skinned. But be ready for the craziness to hit DEFCON-1 sooner than expected.

A Truly Lawless War By a Lawless White House

I can't see how U.S. relations with other countries will ever get better whenever trump and his Republican lackeys are driven from power, as long as this corrupt administration is openly committing war crimes like bombing fishing boats in international waters (via Heather Parton at her Digby blog):

(Quoted from the Task And Purpose website) “Don’t let them make you break the law,” read new digital billboards on expressways near U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Doral, Florida, where the U.S. military’s ongoing operations in the Caribbean Sea are being overseen

The billboards were put up in response to the ongoing military strikes ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration, in what the White House and Pentagon have described as a concerted campaign against “narcoterrorists.”

The strikes are illegal and immoral. They aren’t even war crimes because there is no war. They’re just straight up mass murder.

The veterans behind the billboards at Win Without War and About Face: Veterans Against The War, describe it differently, calling them “ongoing lawless strikes on boats near the South American coasts...” 

It’s even worse than we knew. Per Politico:

Defense Department officials do not know precisely who they have killed in multiple military strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean that have claimed the lives of at least 57 people, according to Democratic lawmakers who attended a classified House briefing on the issue Thursday.

The meeting with members of the House Armed Services Committee — which comes amid bipartisan requests from members of Congress for more legal justification for the deadly strikes — was conducted by department policy officials but no military lawyers, who were pulled from the briefing shortly before it started.

Lawmakers at the briefing said they were not given an explanation for the change and were left frustrated over the lack of clarity on the justifications for the military actions...

They don’t know who they are murdering and they don’t care. And now we know that they’re killing them on the basis of some “connection” to a “terrorist organization or affiliate.” We have no idea how they define any of that. What’s a connection? What’s an affiliate? And what fucking authority allows them to kill people based on any of this???

I’ve seen the government use the U.S. military to do some heinous things in my time, but this may be the most blatantly illegal without even the fig leaf of a believable rationale.

We've had our leaders lie us into wars before - as far back as the Mexican-American War over the Texas border with Mexico - and we're still coping with the dissemblers from the 2003 Iraqi Occupation never held to account for lying about WMDs and then lying about their torture regime. 

But we're at the point where trump and his Far Right warhawks don't care what the facts are regarding anything. All they want is to justify their war on Latino immigrants, by tying it to a 50-year-old War On Drugs that would involve violating other nations' sovereignty - either with illegal missile/bomb strikes across their borders, or escalating further with "regime change" via a ground war - in such ways that even our closest allies in NATO and North America - if any remain by that point - would side against us.

Adding to the madness is how trump is doing this without the constitutional requirements that Congress has to sign off on any extended military action. Even Dubya had to lie to the legislature to get authorization to invade and occupy Iraq. With government officially in Shutdown mode thanks to Republican incompetence (AND arrogance, AND unwillingness to fund SNAP to feed our families, AND terrified of a pending House to release the Epstein Files exposing a lot of trump's sins) trump and his warmongering buddies like Hegseth and Miller believe they can do anything they want with our armed forces.

This is not a good thing if we're heading into war with Venezuela - or Nigeria, or Mexico, or Canada, or Denmark - much like the dangers of going into a war with Iran: Again, our nation is not unified to fight an overseas war (and with the Far Right insisting on absolute loyalty, they will turn violent against any anti-war protests that will rise up); we will not have allies siding with us and in fact will see other nations side against us; and the leadership that will put themselves in control of any planned war are buffoons and idiots who've convinced themselves they're military geniuses when they pretty much can't even plan out parades.

We're being led into an illegal unjust war at this point, where the only thing stopping trump is his own inability to focus on anything at any particular time. But sooner or later, that chaotic bubble he and his lackeys are in will pop, and then everything else will explode.

Gods help us.

The Reckless Reprisal

Update: Again, thanks to Steve in Manhattan for sharing this article on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. Stay safe and abolish ICE, America.

We're going through the turmoil of having donald trump rattle sabers - again - at Iran, using more direct and dangerous language than he used back in 2019 (via Rebecca Rosman and Franco Ordoñez at NPR):

President Trump on Wednesday declined to say whether the United States is moving closer to a decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, after Iran's supreme leader warned the U.S. against an attack and rejected Trump's call to surrender.

"You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that question," Trump said when a reporter at the White House asked whether the U.S. would attack Iran. "I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do..."

"We're the only ones that have the capability to do it — but that doesn't mean I'm going to do it," he told reporters in the Oval Office after an unrelated event. The president said he would be meeting in the Situation Room — which he also referred to as the "war room" — about the crisis...

This comes amid nearly a week of fighting between U.S. ally Israel and Iran, and amid signals from U.S. and Israeli officials that Trump could be considering an attack on Iran.

In a string of social media posts on Tuesday, Trump demanded Iran's "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" and boasted, "We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran," raising speculation that U.S. forces were already more involved than previously acknowledged.

Khamenei responded to the demand in his address Wednesday, his second public appearance since Israel launched strikes on his country last week.

"This is a nation that will never surrender to any form of imposition," he said.

On Tuesday, Trump also issued a direct threat against Khamenei. "We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now."

Again, this could all be the bluster of an overgrown bully that we've seen from trump when he's trying to force a deal on others. However, trump is also impulsive, and currently irritable over how disastrous his birthday parade turned out. he's in a mood to hurt somebody, and dropping bombs on civilians over in the Middle East would seem too easy a move for him to make.

You have to remember what happened during trump's first tenure in the White House: sporadic missile attacks on certain Islamic targets, followed by our Army quitting the battlefield and our regional allies to struggle against Russian-backed Syrians, followed by a targeted attack on a high-ranking Iranian official on Iraqi soil that aggravated regional tensions.

All of this impulsive, unfocused acts of a desperate man trying to pose as an elite Alpha Male on the global stage; with no consideration of the consequences and harm those acts imposed on our nation and whatever allies we have left. Most of this getting imposed on our nation by the only "ally" we are counting on in that region, as Israel - led by a genocidal schemer in Netanyahu who's trying to avoid getting kicked out of power again - is forcing the United States to commit to a military action that will honestly lead into another quagmire for us.

I wrote about this the last time around, back in 2019 when I posed seven reasons we shouldn't invade Iran. All of the arguments I made then are still relevant today, with the added possibility that modern technological boosts to drone warfare will expose our Navy fleets and our regional military bases to potentially disastrous (for us) yet effective (for Iran) ends.

We also have to consider trump's flippant attitude towards our own nuclear stockpile, and that if this situation worsens - and considering how inept our current Defense leadership is, that's likely - trump could well exercise that option. Even one nuke dropped on any place in Iran would kill thousands of civilians and leave literal fallout, while the metaphoric fallout would be the entire world turning the US into a pariah state.

If trump thinks this can push Iran to the negotiating table to hammer out a no-nukes agreement to replace the one he blew up, he's wrong. It won't placate Netanyahu, and the escalation will continue to where we'll be back at the "bomb 'em all" brinksmanship only at a more extreme and irrational level.

This was never going to end well with trump in charge. None of you 77 million voters realized that? /headdesk

The Rattling of Sabers

trump's not even in the White House (again) and he's already causing our diplomatic corps and foreign policy experts to reach for the nearest bottles of Jack Daniels with his social media announcements raging against our neighboring nations and long-standing allies.

trump's fauxrage towards Mexico remains ongoing, left over from all of his "we're gonna build a wall to keep out the rapists and drug gangs" grandstanding during his first tenure. Since this November, trump openly plans to issue painful tariffs - painful for the United States, not Mexico - on our southern neighbors as retaliation for what he claims is an "ongoing invasion" of America. Mixed in with that are more unsettling threats to order U.S. military strikes on drug cartel locations across Mexico, violating their sovereignty and likely killing a high number of civilians. The kind of acts that lead to open wars.

Toss into this mix how trump repeatedly "jokes" about annexing Canada but does so as part of his ongoing - and spreading - obsession with raising tariffs on our major trade partners. It doesn't help that a number of Far Right pundits and MAGA followers fantasize about invading Canada (much like the War Hawks of 1812).

Now in the news, trump is making demands - threats - towards Panama regarding control of the canal, a vital shipping route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Coverage from the recent Turning Point USA conference has trump beating the war drums to "take back" control of the region (via Julio Ricardo Varela at MSNBC):

President-elect Donald Trump blurted out another outrageous promise at a Turning Point USA event Sunday in Phoenix: He now wants the Panama Canal back. Trump claimed that Panama’s shipping fees were “ridiculous” and threatened to demand the canal’s return if these fees aren't reduced.

“I can proudly proclaim that the Golden Age of America is upon us,” Trump said. “There’s a spirit that we have now that we didn’t have just a short while ago.”

Trump’s invocation of a “Golden Age” will always excite his supporters, who thrill at his call to “Make America Great Again.” But for much of Latin America, the era that slogan harks back to was defined by U.S. imperialism and exploitation. Panama knows this history better than most, having endured decades of American control over a canal that defines not just the country’s economy but its very identity.

Trump’s notion to take back the canal is not just inflammatory. It risks reigniting tensions between the U.S. and many Latin American countries, after those countries have worked hard to move past fears about American intrusions on their sovereignty. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino swiftly rebuked Trump, stating, “Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjoining zone is Panama’s and will remain so. The sovereignty and independence of our country is non-negotiable.”

If trump even hopes to build any foreign relations successes, he's burning bridges before he can cross them. /headdesk

And for the love of God, trump is making noises - again - about wanting to buy - or worse, seize - Greenland away from Denmark, a nation not in the mood to make any deals now or ever.

Just how many nations does trump want to anger / alienate / piss off before Inauguration Day?

If there is a simple or well-meaning reason for all of this, trump's behaviors and statements are all part of the blustering and bullying he inflicts on everybody when he thinks he's "negotiating" his deals. This is his game plan: 

1. Blow up any existing deal to cause chaos,
2. Bully everyone he has to make deals with,
3. Force them - or wear them down - to accept deals that pretty much were the same as before except trump himself gets a bigger piece of the action,
4. Claim he's the greatest deal-maker of all time.

I honestly don't believe any of that ever worked in his - or America's - favor every time he tried bullying his way to deals as President. trump did all of this when he blew up NAFTA to force Canada and Mexico into negotiating a new trade deal... that pretty much was the same deal but with stricter labor provisions that Democrats in Congress pushed through in 2019. trump's administration had a rougher go of it throughout their foreign policy efforts, because trump was not able to bully other nations into giving up more to him. One of the few foreign policy deals trump did accomplish... was signing a peace deal with the Afghani Taliban that gave them everything they wanted - prisoners freed, and the opportunity to take over Afghanistan within a year - while trump left Biden holding the blame.

For all the talk about military strikes into Mexico and "territorial expansion" as part of trump's agenda for 2025, he had talked like that before and never really followed through. trump DID expand a bombing / drone strikes campaign across the Middle East - especially an attack on an Iranian military leader while he was visiting Iraq - and at one point openly discussed missile strikes and possible invasion of Iran itself, but when push came to shove trump did not engage in direct warfare or military action against the nations he kept threatening. Hell, he turned into North Korea's best buddy when Kim Jong Il sent trump love letters.

However...

Back in trump's first term, trump had to rely on established political and military leaders within the government - his Joint Chiefs, his national security advisors, and foreign policy Cabinet figures - who counseled towards caution and who kept talking trump out of his more violent proposals. Going into his second term, trump is not relying on any of those people and is tapping some of the more... volatile talking heads on Fox Not-News who are less inclined to urge caution (and more inclined to sadistic punishment of others).

One of the things trump and his team remain focused on is a mass deportation plan to round up, imprison, and exile millions of "undocumented" Latinos (and Asians, Africans, and anybody else not-White) with the likelihood of just yeeting all those millions across the Mexican border in violation of the Constitution, international human rights treaties, and basic human decency.

It also runs into a wall of logistical headaches, as that deportation plan requires more manpower, facilities, and resources than our immigration services - and even local law enforcement - can provide. Which is why trump is all too eager to deploy the U.S. military to cover those logistical issues, even though the armed forces are not designed - or required by law - to perform those actions.

The only way trump can get around those legal constraints would be to invoke a national emergency - this is where his alarmist rhetoric of "invasion by illegals" comes into play - and what better way than to use executive powers to declare us in a state of war with the nations - Mexico and most of Central and South America - where most undocumented workers come from? Not only would that allow trump and his cohorts to federalize the National Guards - even the ones from Democratic states - but it would also serve as a big stick to threaten Mexico into either giving into trump's demands to accept the mass deportations or risk U.S. invasion to force them to.

Thing is, Mexico is going to do whatever is in their best interests, not trump's. Even submitting to trump's will in this matter for the short term would be a strain on Mexico's own resources and capabilities, not without financial concessions that trump and his wingnut allies will likely refuse to give. Even the risk and costs of war with a global superpower might prove a more palatable outcome for Mexicans...

...as well as the rest of Central and South America whose populations will be greatly affected by trump's deportation plan and who may well ally with Mexico, giving them the political - and military - support they would need.

As much as American arrogance will convince us that we're the world's greatest military, our own recent attempts at war - the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq - demonstrated our own abilities have their limits. Much like I noted before about the costs and hazards of a potential invasion of Iran, any war against Mexico has its own risks. 

We won't have the advantages of distance: This would be a straight-on border clash along a wide border that Mexico can exploit as much as the U.S. can. We won't have any advantages of allies: trump's overt belligerence and open inhumanity towards migrants would alienate every potential support even if he tries to insist on help from NATO or other treaty groups. Canada - and much of the UK Commonwealth across the Caribbean - would likely ally with Mexico, which is where the American wingnut threats to "annex Canada" would come back to bite America in the ass.

This may all be alarmist and unnecessary. Again, trump proved before he is more bluster than action. The problem is that this time, trump is more determined than ever to resolve his fixation - his rage and racist hatred - on an immigration "problem" he swore to end.

If "fixing it" requires going to war, trump will go there.

And Gods help us - not just Mexico, maybe not just Canada and/or Panama - all if he does.

Blood And Fire Across the Middle East This April Evening

Damn. While I'd been busy writing a previous article, it looks like the War between Israel and Hamas expanded to include Iran sending missiles and drones to strike targets in Israel (via Becky Sullivan at NPR):

Air raid sirens sounded across Israel and the occupied West Bank and Israeli officials urged people to seek shelter after Iran launched dozens of drones toward Israel late Saturday night in an attack that marked a major escalation of conflict in the Middle East.

Iran had vowed to retaliate after an airstrike on an Iranian consulate in Syria earlier this month killed seven Iranian military officials. It is the first time that Iran has launched an attack on Israel from Iranian soil, Israeli officials said. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the attack also included missiles.

There was already international outrage that Israel struck a foreign embassy, but this is Netanyahu we're talking about: Any excuse to expand the war so he can stay in power:

In a Saturday night address to Israelis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country was ready for "any scenario, both defensively and offensively."

"We have determined a clear principle: Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We will defend ourselves against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination," Netanyahu said.

Caught in the middle of all this was the United States, bound by treaty and historical obligations to defend Israel. While our military in the region responded by shooting down as many of the drones and missiles as possible to reduce civilian targets, there now comes the dread that we're getting caught in an escalating cycle of retaliation between two sides: Israel backed by the U.S. and European allies vs. Hamas and Hezbollah backed by Iran... and Russia.

It's pretty clear that Russia and Iran are closely tied: Russia is relying on Iranian drone manufacturing to supply the ongoing bombardment of civilian targets in Ukraine. It's also clear - once you step back and look at the bigger picture of the global chaos all this fighting in Gaza and Israel generates - that the ones who profit most in any escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran are Putin and his lackeys (both in Russia and here in the United States).

I've argued before against any American involvement in a war against Iran. The dynamics were different then: The reason to avoid it now revolves around how we dare not get suckered into a fight that can distract us from aiding Ukraine.

If Biden is smart enough, if he can see the bigger picture here - that the real threat remains PUTIN, and that we need to bolster aid to Ukraine - then we can hope that the United States will play a more moderating conciliatory role in the coming days. Biden needs to - with whatever force and influence we've got left - rein in Netanyahu's warmongering here and now, and end the human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank to signal Iran to step back on their saber-rattling (the Ayatollahs should worry about engaging in a fight that could trigger political protests at home).

Biden may try to use the moment to bring Republicans over to his side on providing aid to Israel - which he and the Democrats are tying to aid for Ukraine and Taiwan - but given how too many of trump's allies - along with trump himself - are already Putin's puppets, that's unlikely to happen. 

As an aside in one of those grand ironies: If Biden tries to get authorization from Congress to expand our military's efforts against Iran (and Russia), those same Republicans could vote against it out of fear that Biden will win over 2024 voters as a war-time leader, and thus prevent the U.S. from getting dragged into another Middle East quagmire.

All in all, it's another complete mess where the simplest solution is to get Hamas and Hezbollah and Israeli Right Wingers to STOP KILLING EACH OTHER SO THAT NORMAL ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS COULD JUST GET ON WITH THEIR LIVES, THAT WOULD BE GRAND AND DANDY. 

(deep inhale)

In the meantime, we can hope that Biden's diplomacy works its way through the narrowest of paths to a solution of some kind that doesn't involve nuking half of everything between Cairo to Tehran.

Good luck.

trump Keeps Banging That War Drum in the Middle East, November 2020 Edition

It's like these fuckers WANT to start a war they know Biden would have to resolve on his own. Reported just today via The Week:

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a nuclear scientist who has been suspected of leading Iran's nuclear weapons program, was shot and killed Friday while traveling in a vehicle east of Tehran, Iranian state media said. He was apparently taken to the hospital for treatment, but doctors were unable to save him. Fakhrizadeh has long been a top target of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif believes Jerusalem was behind the assassination, but a spokesperson for the Israeli military refused to comment. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed retaliation against the perpetrators. Not much is known about Fakrizadeh, believed to be 59, but a 2007 CIA assessment said his role as a physics professor was likely a cover story, and it later became clear he was in charge of Iran's warhead development, The New York Times reports.

Refer back to what happened at the very start of this year, when trump and his administration ordered a public strike in Iraq killing a top Iranian military official. What I said then:

This isn't like the strike Obama called on Bin Laden back in 2011. Bin Laden by then was a pariah figure among most Muslim power brokers and nations with few allies to defend or mourn him. The backlash against his death was meager (and in some ways welcomed) across the Middle East. This is different. Soleimani was a high-ranking figure within the Iranian government itself, a major player with ally Syria, and someone well-connected among the Shi'a militia forces threatening much of Iraq and Kurdish areas not yet flattened by Turkey/Russia.

This is like Iran calling an airstrike on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The kind of thing that would trigger a major political and military response from us. The kind of thing where a declaration of war would be a rational response.

And yet it wouldn't surprise me if trump and his remaining foreign policy/military advisors would welcome this move. trump thinks war is a game and probably thinks this is the kind of thing that will win him more support and silence his Democratic critics.

But war for political gain is no longer a smart move. War for conquest and resources ends up squandering both...

It's telling that the cooler heads prevailing from that mess were the Iranians, who know damn well getting into a straight-up fight with the United States will hurt them as much as it would hurt us. Most evidence seems to point to Iran doing their best to survive trump's bullying until Biden enters the Presidency and resumes diplomatic efforts that would benefit them.

Today's attack - suggested to be an Israeli strike but with U.S. and Saudi backing, considering the reports coming out that Netanyahu and his head of Mossad (intelligence agency) secretly met with U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo and the crown prince Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia about four days ago - is another attempt to goad Iran into war, something that would fulfill trump's self-promotion as a military genius who knows better than the generals as well as start a quagmire he wouldn't have to worry about after January 20, 2021.

This is serious shit. Again.

Referring to Cheryl Rofer at Balloon-Juice, who has a background in foreign policy and nuclear proliferation, this is not good news:

Israel, and the Trump administration, have been trying to break the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) so that it cannot be revived. The JCPOA froze and even pushed back Iran’s nuclear weapons program, putting it under greater international scrutiny than any nuclear program in the world.

But war with Iran is what Mike Pompeo and other Trump advisors have wanted. It is also what Netanyahu wants, as long as the losses are primarily America’s.

On top of the devastation of the Iraq War, a war with Iran would tear the Middle East apart. Those desiring war imagine that it would destroy Iran without extreme damage to themselves...

I'm not an expert on these matters the way Rofer is, but I'd wager she would agree with every point I've made about why a war with Iran is a bad idea.

How much of this is trump thinking a declaration of war against Iran - if he can provoke them into making a massive attack against U.S. forces in the area - would allow him to suspend the election transition is pure speculation. It wouldn't work because the election is hard-wired into the Constitution and he can't stop what's coming this January 20th. 

We should consider this is trump's way of getting his mobs to cheer him on as a war hawk, while leaving the bills to get paid by Biden as a vindictive Fuck-You parting gift.

The year that is 2020 isn't done with us yet...

Deteriorating Situation 2020 trump Style

Gods, this weekend has seen more collapses than an earthquake disaster movie.

This is what happened today Sunday January 5 (via Military Times).

Iraq’s Parliament called for the expulsion of U.S. troops from the country Sunday in reaction to the American drone attack that killed a top Iranian general.

Lawmakers approved a resolution asking the Iraqi government to end the agreement under which Washington sent forces to Iraq more than four years ago to help in the fight against the Islamic State group.

A pullout of the estimated 5,200 U.S. troops could cripple the fight against ISIS and allow its resurgence.

The majority of about 180 legislators present in Parliament voted in favor of the resolution. It was backed by most Shiite members of parliament, who hold a majority of seats. Many Sunni and Kurdish legislators did not show up for the session, apparently because they oppose abolishing the deal.

Officials from the Pentagon, U.S. Central Command and the Combined Joint Task Force Inherent Resolve did not immediately respond to requests by Military Times for comment.

The implications here, combined with the previous disastrous moves by trump allowing Turkey and Russia to purge Syrian Kurdish regions, will mean a resurgence of the Islamic State bastards who are so extremist they make the Taliban look like the Care Bears. This is going to lead to another round of internal bloodshed in Iraq that killed hundreds of innocent civilians and threatened a number of minority Persian/Arab groups that ISIL wants exterminated. Throw into this the further isolation of Iraqi Kurds and we've essentially abandoned the one ethnic group in the entire region the United States could trust. They sure as hell won't trust us ever again.

And here's Bombshell Number Two (via New York):

Iran announced on Sunday that it will no longer honor its commitments from the 2015 nuclear deal and said it has removed all limits on its uranium-enrichment program. The declaration came after the regime officials held an emergency meeting to reevaluate Iran’s nuclear program after President Trump ordered the assassination of the country’s top military leader, Qasem Soleimani, in a drone strike in Baghdad on Thursday. Iran also stressed in a statement that it was willing to resume honoring the deal and reopen access to the International Atomic Agency, but only after sanctions against the country were removed and it was sure its interests would be secure — i.e., that the U.S. would fulfill its commitment to the deal after President Trump unilaterally decided to abandon it.

In 2018, Trump withdrew from the deal and made the unsubstantiated claim that Iran had violated its terms. America’s JCPOA partners in Europe disagreed and tried, but ultimately failed, to preserve the agreement thanks to the numerous obstacles Trump and his Iran-hawk advisers erected as part of their maximum-pressure campaign against Tehran.

The JCPOA was working until trump sabotaged the deal. He and his neocon war-hawks despised Obama's efforts, believing it a betrayal of their War On Terror game plan. They'd rather have Iran dive head first into a nuclear armament program to justify attacking Iran for doing exactly that: A self-fulfilling disaster.

This is a failure of diplomacy all around. The war factions of trump's administration are getting what they want: More War, especially one designed to bring about their Rapture. trump is getting the two-fer of pissing on Obama's political legacy (negating a peace deal that could have led to an open and moderate Iran) and setting up a media spectacle designed to drown out (and in his mind shut down) the ongoing Impeachment process.

What we're going to get is further escalation as the situation in the Middle East deteriorates past the point of no return (if we haven't hit that already). We're getting the likelihood of the United States military being ordered to set attacks on Iranian Heritage Sites (civilian locations) which would by the way BE WAR CRIMES. We're getting an increase of terror and militia strikes against U.S. bases and personnel across the globe (We may already have in Kenya).

We're going to get more insanity and more chaos and more death because our government's system of checks and balances are failing to constrain a goddamn madman at the helm. Too many people in trump's Cabinet want this shit to happen, our military commanders unwilling to cross a line that could end their careers as acts of insubordination, and Congress too divided because of McConnell's obstructionist partisan bullshit to do anything to stop trump.

This is now officially out of control. And it's going to take more than luck to live through this.

Oh Jesus. 2020 Just Escalated Quickly

(Update: with a big thanks to Tengrain for including this article on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! I'd wish you all a Happy New Year but Christ this year already is a trumpster fire... Please leave a comment)

This has been breaking news for the past hour or so. This is via Libby Nelson at Vox.com:

A US airstrike killed a top Iranian military official, along with four others, at the Baghdad airport early Friday morning, according to a Pentagon statement. The attack represents a major escalation of simmering hostilities between the US and Iran.

The death of Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who led Iranian covert operations and intelligence and one of the country’s most revered military leaders, was reported by Iraqi state television early Friday morning local time, according to multiple US media sources, and confirmed in a statement from the Pentagon.

“General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.”

The statement concluded: “This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”

Iran has not issued an official response to the attack, but has criticized the US for its involvement in the region in recent days.

The attack comes after days of escalating tensions. An American contractor was killed near Kirkuk, Iraq, last week and 4 military members were injured in an attack by Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah. A retaliatory strike by the US killed 25 members of the militia and injured more than 50. Then, on New Year’s Eve on Tuesday, militia members attacked the US embassy in Baghdad...

While this looks on its face like a great moment for the United States - woohoo, we took out a terrorist, an Iranian bigwig woohoo! Team America FUCK Yeah! - this is in fact scaring the hell out of every foreign policy and Middle East expert across the Intertubes and for good reason. To refer to Adam L Silverman at Balloon Juice:

...This strike will also enrage the Iranians and provide the Iranian government with an internal opening for influence and propaganda to rally support for the Iranian state among a domestic Iranian population that may be wavering. So it will likely retard reform in general and attempts at democratization in specific in the short to medium term. Especially if there is immediate Iranian response and/or escalation to today’s attack and a US response to Iran’s actions that can be used by the Iranian government to reinforce its standing with the Iranian people.

Finally, I don’t see why anyone in the Iranian government would talk to anyone in the US government at this point while the current administration is in place. The President, his senior officials, and surrogates have made it clear that they really aren’t interested in talking. Last week Putin announced  that he’s not going to go along with the sanctions regime against Iran any longer, which further reinforces to Iran that they don’t need to talk to us as they have Putin to leverage as a patron. I also expect that Iran will sell their oil to the Chinese because Xi could care less about our sanctions. There is no way to squeeze the Iranians economically as the government is impervious to the pain and has ways to sell its oil to ease that pain. You can find my take on why making war in Iran would be strategic malpractice unless we were prepared for total war and even then it isn’t a good idea at West Point’s Modern War Institute.

My take: This is essentially one step away from honest-to-GOD war with Iran.

This isn't like the strike Obama called on Bin Laden back in 2011. Bin Laden by then was a pariah figure among most Muslim power brokers and nations with few allies to defend or mourn him. The backlash against his death was meager (and in some ways welcomed) across the Middle East. This is different. Soleimani was a high-ranking figure within the Iranian government itself, a major player with ally Syria, and someone well-connected among the Shi'a militia forces threatening much of Iraq and Kurdish areas not yet flattened by Turkey/Russia.

This is like Iran calling an airstrike on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The kind of thing that would trigger a major political and military response from us. The kind of thing where a declaration of war would be a rational response.

And yet it wouldn't surprise me if trump and his remaining foreign policy/military advisors would welcome this move. trump thinks war is a game and probably thinks this is the kind of thing that will win him more support and silence his Democratic critics.

But war for political gain is no longer a smart move. War for conquest and resources ends up squandering both.

And like I blogged before, going to war against Iran is NOT a good idea.

We are being led into another quagmire - much like the 2003 Iraqi invasion and occupation - only this time against a stronger opponent in harsher terrain with fewer allies, and led by a Shitgibbon who doesn't know the first thing of winning at Risk let alone winning a war against another nation.

We are so very fucking royally fucked.

Some Days of the Darkest Timeline Are Just Packed

So Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act...

trump's chickenhawks are accusing Iran of attacking Japanese oil tankers...

House Republicans are STILL claiming "No Collusion"...

Just to note how fucked up the world is right now, Boris Johnson is lining up to be the next Prime Minister of Brexit...

There's an ongoing civil war in Syria, bloodshed in Sudan, and Ebola plagues in Africa...

And Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving the White House by the end of the month.

Did I miss anything?

Oh, right.

trump argued that he doesn't have to report any foreign offers of support to his re-election campaign essentially claiming he'll collude (again), prompting the chair of the Federal Elections Commission to issue a rebuke (which is still toothless without arresting trump for the shit he's already pulled in 2016! /headdesk)

I swear, O Lord, You better have angels coming down to fix all this shit, 'cause we're fucked and nobody else is coming to help.

Seven Reasons NOT To Invade Iran (w/ 2020 Update)

(Update: Thanks to Tengrain for promoting this entry on Crooks & Liars and Mike's Blog Round Up! Please do stay awhile and read the latest entries especially today's memorial for the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre)

(Update 06/17/2020: Well, I submitted this article to the Florida Writers Association's 2020 Royal Palm Literary Awards in their Non-Fiction/Blog category, and good news tonight it's received Semi-Finalist status!)


(Update 07/25/2020: Follow-up on the RPLA for 2020, this article is now a FINALIST in the Non-Fiction/Blog category! Which comes with another GIF to upload. On a serious note, this qualifies to be a First, Second, or Third Place winner by late October (not guaranteed however, there may be more than three finalists in most Royal Palm categories)).

(Update 10/18/2020: The RPLA awards ceremony was last night, and this article received Silver (Second Place) in the Non-Fiction/Blog category! Thank you, judges!) 


Now, back to the article:

So trump - through his war-hungry advisor John Bolton and other proxies - has been saber-rattling towards Iran lately.

This after he and Bolton saber-rattled at Venezuela before backing off, and after saber-rattling at North Korea before Jong Il figured out how to turn trump into a gushing fanboy.

But this is serious. trump's committed harsh acts towards Iran: Dissing the nuclear deal Obama made with them, re-issuing the hard sanctions Obama relaxed, adding more sanctions towards nations still working with Iran on limiting their nuclear program to non-weapon levels, and essentially threatening to turn the whole country into his next parking lot.

And in the past week, trump's people had been laying the groundwork for a full-out invasion, talking up 120,000 troops getting deployed, a carrier fleet heading to the area, everything they can think of to make the Iranian government freak out. There's been sudden and unconfirmed reports of Saudi shipping getting attacked with mines. A ton of "Gulf of Tonkin" style setup.

And while trump is now showing signs of backing off - that he's suddenly aware that throwing a punch in this schoolyard standoff might mean getting punched back - there's just too many reasons in trump's head - and in the heads of all his neocon war-happy lackeys - to avoid the reality that sooner or later trump wants his goddamn war so he can play Commander-in-Chief. And like it or not, Iran remains at the top of the neocon Wish List.

However, for all the fantasy reasons trump (and Bolton) have for invading Iran, there's a lot of reasons in the real world we shouldn't be eager to start yet another land war in the Middle East.

Starting with 1) The United States will be going into a land war with Iran all on its own.

This is the first thing trump needs to understand: Thanks to all his bluster and bullying on the global stage, most of our natural allies (Hi, NATO!) are in no mood to help us anymore. Unlike 1991 in the first Iraqi War where we formed an international coalition over specific goals (end Iraq's invasion of Kuwait), and unlike 2003 in the second Iraqi War where we formed a smaller but dedicated coalition over questionable goals (end Saddam's attempts to gain WMDs that turned out not to exist), we are not going to find a lot of teammates for this one. The United States has no specific causus belli on this. While Iran's got a lot of ties to terror organizations across the Middle East (especially in Lebanon) they're not enough of a threat to U.S. interests to the area. Despite claims, Iran's been keeping up with their end of their nonproliferation deal with the other nations. The majority of nations prefer keeping the peace now, and are coping with their own problems at home (some of them can even profit dealing with Iran if/when trump's sanctions end).

The only nations that could ally with the U.S. in an invasion would be Saudi Arabia - Iran's primary competitor for regional influence - and the United Arab Emirates. Also Israel, which has been in a war of sorts against Iranian-backed terror groups. However, Saudi forces are tied down fighting a war in Yemen, the UAE's not much of a military, and if Israel joins in on any invasion of a Muslim nation we're basically talking World War III involving half a dozen African/Middle Eastern nations attacking Israel. The other nations in the region with U.S. military presence - Kuwait and Iraq and Afghanistan - are bogged down with their own issues (Iraq in particular is still coping with ISIL and the overflow from the Syrian Civil War) to be of any help. Turkey, our closest NATO ally, is too busy with Syria as well.

We'd be facing a likelihood of nations helping Iran against us. Primarily China, who would have an interest in gaining more Persian/Arabic oil as well as spit in trump's face for his tariffs war. Hilariously enough, Iran is a client nation with Russia - military and regional economic deals - meaning Russia at best will sit on the sidelines eating popcorn while their BFF trump sweats this out alone.

IF the United States enters into a war with Iran, we will be doing so with the fewest number of allies we've ever committed since the Spanish-American War.

2) Rolling Into Iran Will NOT Be Easy.

Unlike Iraq in 2003 - which had been battered not only by international sanctions but by constant military strikes since the First Iraqi War, along with genuine demoralized troops Saddam treated like cannon fodder - going into Iran will not take days, it will take weeks or even months.

Geographically, Iran is bigger than Iraq and with harsher terrain. It'd be similar to fighting in Afghanistan with vast mountainous ranges. A direct strike at the capital - Tehran - would do nothing to quell the rest of the nation, and is far enough inland that supply routes are necessary between any US bases (likely from Iraq) and the front lines, requiring occupation of a lot of major cities between the coast and inland.

Leading up to:

3) We Will NOT Be Greeted As Liberators.

That was one particular fantasy from the 2003-2009 Iraqi occupation that died a quick death. Cheney's assertion back then about Iraqis wanting new leadership was based on genuine hatred of Saddam... but ignored the reality that Iraqis hated getting invaded in the first place. They saw the U.S. trying to impose rule by a hand-picked toady (Hi, Chalabi!) and refused to accept him. Tied into the overall failure of the U.S. occupiers to organize and function to create a new political infrastructure to succeed Saddam's dark rule, and you got a nation full of resentful residents who allowed insurgency and opposition to turn Iraq into another Quagmire for America.

And that was with a nation that wanted independence from a despot. With Iran...?

Granted, the Iranians are oppressed as well - the recent history of uprisings and protests prove that - but they've seen the damage done to Iraq and aren't too impressed with the mess the U.S. is leaving in Afghanistan. The Iranian people know that if the Americans come knocking we aren't going to be all smiles and chocolate bars, we're going to be bombing the shit out of everyone and let God sort em out. They'd rather side with the despots they know than deal with whatever crooked puppet we'd put in office (remember the Shah? That was us putting him on the throne back in the 1950s!)

4) We Do NOT Have the Troops For a Prolonged War Effort.

Especially considering we're STILL active in Afghanistan, with forces in Iraq and Syria coping with ISIL, as well as keeping ourselves deployed in South Korea and Japan to deter North Korea/China, and Gods help us the crap trump is forcing our military to commit to along the Mexican border.

Bolton and others are talking up sending in 120,000 troops if/when we get serious about Iran, which is a smaller number than the 150,000 troops sent into Iraq in 2003... and even then we had retired generals warning us that was half of what was needed to make the occupation work. If trump were serious, he ought to be calling up for volunteers to kick that number into the 300,000 troop range... and the way recruiting is suffering, that's not likely.

We're going into a larger nation, with tougher terrain, more cities to siege. They have roughly 500,000 active service personnel. We may have technological advantages that can shut down things like their own Air Force and communications, but they have advantages of watching us in action the last 15 years and knowing how to counter all that (not to mention getting cyberwar help from Russia).

Remember Millennium Challenge 2002? That war game after 9/11 where the U.S. tried out their game plan against an unnamed country that they later revealed was Iran? The Marine general playing as Iran used crafty asymmetrical methods and "sank" a carrier fleet, and the only way the U.S. side won was by "resetting" the whole thing and ordering that general to not use the methods he deployed. Do you think Iran is going to play by OUR rules if we invade? This is the real world: YOU DO NOT GET TO RESET WARS.

Iran can, arguably, bloody our military's nose early enough in any invasion attempt to make Americans recoil at the losses. And we won't have the troops to recover quick enough.

And it's definitely not going to look good for "the boss" because trump wants his victories pretty like him...

5) We Do NOT Have A Unified And Supportive Home Front.

When 9/11 happened, the entire nation mourned and stood united against a terror threat. When we sent troops into Afghanistan where the threat was, there was near agreement from all Americans that it was the right thing to do.

When Dubya wanted to invade Iraq as part of his Global War on Terror, the unity faded. A lot of Americans argued it was the wrong war at the wrong time (we hadn't captured Bin Laden, we were still nation-building in Afghanistan).

When Obama wanted to do something about Syria or Libya, he was constrained by a GOP-leaning Congress and by general public apathy, and so left it to minimal efforts that left both nations deep into their own civil wars.

So here comes trump, likely claiming (and believing) a majority of Americans want this war in Iran. he probably thinks ANY war effort will force his critics to shut up to avoid getting labeled "unpatriotic" and "treasonous" (which he and his GOP worshipers are doing anyway). he's ignoring the facts that A) he's still unpopular across the general population and B) the likelihood of a bad opening attack wave would make him over-react in public to cause more Americans to distrust his leadership.

6) Don't Forget: Everything trump Touches Turns to Shit.

As a war-time leader, trump will be all over the place. Meddling in military affairs when he shouldn't, ignoring all warning signs when he should. his point men on Iran - Bolton most of all - will only care for the results they want, not what they'll get, meaning worse decisions will follow after bad. Considering how trump may rely on a private merc army - hi Erik! - to beef up his forces could cause confusion and mayhem on the ground in ways our legitimate military won't be able to control.

In short: We're dealing with a White House that won't cope well with any early setbacks, that can well over-react and cause more damage not only in Iran but also here at home.

With the likely bonus of trump selling off billion-dollar contracts to his corporate buddies that can siphon off much needed funding and supplies while the invasion quickly sours. It's Lose-Lose for the nation when this happens.

trump is not serious about going to actual war. Bolton and Sec of State Pompeo and maybe a lot of other neocons are, but trump is going to treat this as a photo op, a chance for him to perform his immigrant-bashing tirades in front of soldiers who won't enjoy being used as props. The whole thing will be over-managed and under-planned, with money going the wrong way while the troops get sent into death traps.

7) Any war is a bad idea when diplomacy is possible and ought to be pursued.

That's just goddamned common sense. trump and the neocons just want this war to prove diplomacy - at least the way it's been done since the Second World War - doesn't work and that they have better ways to resolve everything. It's trump's Id at play again: Every deal he doesn't make is a bad deal, so he'll blow things up and force people to deal his way (where he gets all the credit and probably all the money).

And yet... trump's saber-rattling continues on.

Sorry, Middle East, we're heading into another decade without any goddamn peace again.

Where Zero Sum in Breaking Treaties Leaves The United States At Zero

So for my birthday today, the Shitgibbon decided to shit on international relations by having the United States drop its commitment to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that severely limited Iran's capability to build nuclear weapons.

This is in spite of lack of evidence that Iran is cheating on the deal (whenever they came to a point of breaking one of the rules, they reported the problem and complied), in spite of the evidence that trump and his hard-line foreign policy "experts" (cough Bolton cough) want war regardless of the facts or the cost, in spite of how our nation's most prominent allies (France, Germany and the UK) are against this move.

From my perspective, this is really happening because:

1) trump is obsessed with destroying Obama's Presidential accomplishments. Not just by eliminating Obama's executive orders and turning back regulations set by Obama's administration, but by decimating every foreign policy success Obama gained. The JCPOA deal Obama worked out - despite heavy Republican interference - was an international accord that signaled America's strength and the nation's commitment to reducing nuclear conflict, and did so sharing our stance with our allies in a way to keep those alliances healthy.

2) trump despises any deals made that he thinks he can get a better deal out of it. he's convinced by making this move it could force Iran back to the table with him, at which point he can bully out of them a sweet deal for himself - trump Towers in Tehran! - and make himself look good for the Nobel Peace Prize at the same go.

3) trump got talked into this - either directly or indirectly - by his Russian handlers working for Putin. Because getting trump to balk at international cooperation and deal-making gives Putin more political sway and prestige on the global stage. Who do you think Iran is gonna deal with now? Everybody BUT the United States, and in terms of military and foreign aid that means getting it from the likes of Russia and China more than the Western European nations struggling to get out of ties with a U.S. that's no longer sane.

Don't listen to me on this. Here's Adam L. Silverman at Balloon Juice providing better foreign policy insight:

Iran’s stated strategy here is to continue to comply with the agreement, keeping it in place with the other signatories – China, France, Russia, the UK, Germany, and the European Union. By doing so Iran intends to isolate the US. As future IAEA reports of compliance are reported, and as Iran maintains the deal with the other signatories to mitigate the reimposition of US sanctions and the imposition of any new ones, Iran will have positioned itself as the good citizen of the global system and the US, under the current President, as the rogue nation...

The US withdrawal from the JCPOA, despite the IAEA certifying Iran’s ongoing compliance because the President and his enablers don’t understand the agreement and how it works or because they’d rather go their own way and threaten military attacks and war, is another example of the devolution of the US from a superpower, the diminution of its power and influence within the international system, and the end of the American century. Here America First clearly means America Alone...

Despite the President’s zero sum, hyperbolic style of negotiation, the Trump Doctrine isn’t in play with the Iranians. They don’t care if the President feels as if he, and by extension the US, is being treated fairly. They’re not going to invite him for a summit, roll out the red carpet, and schedule a military review for his edification. They’re also not going to empower someone close to the government to do business with his companies... The Iranians are not concerned with a reimposition of US sanctions because they’ve decided that if they stay in compliance with the JCPOA that France, German, the EU, China, and their strategic partner in the region Russia will not reimpose their own sanctions or go along with reimposed US sanctions. Moreover, because the leadership of our British, French, and German allies personally intervened to ask the President to stay in the JCPOA and he disregarded their entreaties, he has further isolated the US from its traditional allies...

This is the end result of today's move: The United States can't be trusted to keep its deals, especially under a deal-breaker like trump. As a result, few if any nations will actively deal with us on any foreign policy or trade issue. We're already getting kicked around Asia for ignoring earlier trade pacts, and China's rebuffing any outreach because of trump's earlier tariff war maneuvers.

The United States is no longer a superpower nation. We used to be the only one standing after the end of the (First) Cold War in the early 1990s. Now we're crawling in the gutters screaming "America First" and wondering why no one's taking our calls.

And let's hear from David Frum. You know, the guy who NAMED the "Axis of Evil" that included Iran as a major threat in Dubya/Cheney's Global War on Terror. He's not happy about trump at all right now:

President Trump has just pushed the plunger on a sequence of crises...

...China has emerged as Iran’s largest trading partner. Its trade with Iran jumped 30 percent in the first six months of 2017. China has extended credits to Iran totaling some $35 billion, a significant sum for the shaky Iranian economy. Who will make China stop?

America’s European allies have been more cautious about expanding trade with Iran. Yet will their publics allow their governments to follow the despised and distrusted Trump administration into an escalating confrontation with Iran? Fifty-six percent of Germans describe relations with the United States as bad or very bad...

trump was going into this with bad footing to begin with: On bad terms with an angry China and on worse terms with European nations we used to rely on. And the insane thing, trump won't care:

Trump has never valued allies or partners. The only relationship he understands is one of power: He commands; others obey. But on Iran, the most relevant partners are precisely those who cannot be compelled to obey. Perhaps he imagines he can blackmail them: Join me in imposing new sanctions or else I’ll start a war that you will like even less. That is a bluff at serious risk of being called...

Frum also points out that Iran's no longer as isolated as it was, by having complied with the treaty on their own terms they have become a greater risk in the Middle East, but one that can't be stopped by bullying anymore:

The second is a crisis with Iran itself. One bad consequence of President Obama’s 2015 deal is that Iran is now a better-armed, better-financed adversary than it was then. Thanks in great measure to Trump’s own decisions, Iran has also gained a big victory for Assad’s client regime in Syria. It can retaliate against U.S. interests in all kinds of ways. It can escalate its terror campaign against Israel by using Hezbollah and Hamas. It can green-light a hot war against Israel in Gaza. It can also accelerate its drive for outright nuclear-weapons-state status...

While noted earlier that Iran promises to stick to the JCPOA - it profits them better as a public relations coup to stay away from nukes at the moment - if things do get dicey they can rebuild their weapons program... and with Russia and China as trading partners at this moment they can rebuild faster than expected (and in ways any bombing attacks by the U.S. or Isral can't stop). I don't think Frum's fears of a nuclear Iran is a major concern: What's more dangerous is just more instability in a region that's been unstable since the fall of the Ottomans.

The third crisis—the most ominous of them all—is a potential crisis with North Korea. Trump admirers are debating whether he should display his Nobel Prize at Mar-a-Lago or Trump Tower. On the evidence of his Twitter feed, Trump has convinced himself that the Kim regime has been subdued, ready to surrender its nuclear weapons at a grand summit with Trump. He may soon face the rude shock of discovering that the Kim regime believes instead that it has bested him...

This is a side story I hadn't been mentioning often because it was too unstable to get any hopes up. Recently, North Korea has opened up to the possibility of stopping its nuclear buildup altogether, something that has gotten all the pro-trump hardliners crowing about their big stick of bullying tactics to get Kim to the table. Thing is, so far all the deals have been between North Korea and SOUTH KOREA, and it has more to do with South Korea terrified of the fallout (literal) of any U.S. plans to invade the NK. And where Kim Jong Un is talking about "denuclearization", some observers note he's talking more about "getting the U.S. out of Korea altogether" instead of unilaterally quitting his nukes. That means trying to get trump to agree to something - troop withdrawals from a war zone his hardliners feel they can win - that would play bad back home.

And that's just one possibility. Jong Un may be willing to talk, but for all intents it'll be hot air and making jokes at trump's expense while he sits there without a Korean translator to help him out. And it'll catch trump in a situation where he'll be forced (by his own twisted Id) to wage two wars - against Iran and North Korea - at a moment where the United States can't afford to wage even one.

And it'll be at a moment when the United States will have few if any allies to come to our aid. Western Europe won't help in either case. Japan and Asia will refuse to back an invasion of North Korea (and South Korea might balk fearing NK reprisals). The only nations we could count on against Iran would be Israel and Saudi Arabia, and even then those nations would likely get tied down by uprisings at home. We could even face dire reactions across the globe - at the U.N. level - of having nations impose sanctions on us for trump's transgressions.

What the hell happened to a nation that twenty years ago was the most powerful on Earth? We squandered it all, chasing demons in the Iraqi desert we had no sane reason to chase. We succumbed to a massive military budget demand that spent and spent on junk that won't work while wasting our manpower on lousy pay and soul-breaking endless battles between Iraq and Afghanistan.

We let our jingoism and fear of Other drive half our nation into a drunken rage against the rest of the world.

And now that drunken rage is lashing out in ways that even our allies find repugnant and dangerous.

We're no longer a superpower. We're a wrestling has-been, tossed over the ropes onto the announcers' table, forcing Jim Ross to scream BAH GAWD at the devastation collapsed onto the floor.

This is definitely not going to end well.

I once noted the Republican Party was dead. Well, here's the zombie, come back for the United States, and we're getting bitten and there's nothing stopping us from becoming a shambling ghoul ourselves...