"The same deep state actors who have tried to put [Trump] out of office will succeed if they get him into war with Iran."
And how about this from Cliff Sims, a former communications aide?
"Trump's gut instincts on foreign policy are spot on. It takes a lot of backbone to remain clear-eyed when the foreign policy establishment, even inside his own White House, starts banging the drums of war. He showed real strength by refusing to buckle to pressure to immediately strike Iran."
My guess? Americans like a president who shows strength under pressure.
Not that anyone should care, but since the comment machine hasn't been fired up yet, I'll paste a couple tweets of mine from last night and this morning, add a quick comment and then spare everyone from further reading.
ReplyDeleteRight after the incident's getting reported last night:
"Having a real hard time crediting this NYT line that Trump ordered then killed strike on Iran. Absent key facts possibly left out, wd be a horribly amateur move by Prez - predictably earning head-shaking by friends & scorn by enemies. It’s The Times, ppl, let’s wait to hear more."
Then this morning:
"The proper response to the drone downing is to laugh at Iran’s desperation & not let it throw us off our game. US has much bigger fish to fry, not just w/Iran but here at home & in the world as a whole. A cool head will make POTUS strong at home, hence strong abroad."
This second one I wanted to tweet days ago, but a self-imposed, multi-day Twitter blackout kept me silent. Wish now I had let it fly right away, but oh well.
The Hudson Institute's Mike Doran had similar thoughts:
"I don't agree with the Syria redline analogy. Trump is still imposing crippling sanctions on Iran. The big fight, the strategic fight, is about keeping those sanctions in place until we win on the nuclear question. Tit-for-tat over a drone is minor by comparison."
I continue believing what I expressed in the first tweet, which is that ordering a strike and calling it off at the last minute is net-net bad politics. But his job is harder than mine (no, really!), and the fact that he at least did in the end make his own decision and not be played by the wussie nobodys in Iran or by the bad advice from advisors is what's most important. The media will try to rip him to shreds and may score a point or two in the process, but it's also an opportunity to better establish his no-reckless-use-of-military bona fides. Hopefully he takes that path and does it well.
PS: I say all this as one who believes deeply that an absence of credible military threat is always and everywhere a recipe for more war down the road, not less. I just believe that if we're smart about our non-military powers, and willing to use the military to hit where it really hurts when necessary, we can use it rarely, effectively and with few if any boots on the ground or other forms of risk to American life.
Brad I agree with most of what you're saying, but I think the on-then-off aspect was probably calculated for the domestic market. ON, i.e., this guy is serious about national security; OFF, i.e., this guy thinks things through and doesn't get carried away in a crisis. He's trustworthy--a stable genius, if you will.
DeleteOn the other thread I quoted this from a former WH aide:
Delete"He showed real strength by refusing to buckle to pressure to immediately strike Iran."
Great messaging for prospective voters. Real strength. Presidential.
Thanks, Mark. I'm definitely coming around to what you say - that it was probably planned this way - especially given 1) the President's tweet that it was a desire to prevent the loss of life that helped "change his mind" (no way did he really not ask that question until 10 minutes before Go Time), and 2) the seemingly orchestrated leaks to the NYT.
ReplyDeleteWhile my early impression - or fear, really - remains that it's too smart by half, I'm more hopeful, after seeing your argument, that it could very well end up working more or less as you game it out. It seems there are usually methods to this President's madness, even if they sometimes make for a bumpy ride along the way.
I'll readily admit that I was on that bumpy ride, too. All kinds of things can happen, but to this point he's shown superb judgment.
DeleteYes, this False Flag OP was a second attempt by the Deep State to use it's Iranian proxy as a goad in hopes of entrapping Trump in a foreign policy debacle. He didn't take the bait. The key takeaway here is that the Deep State fully intends to continue with these types covert actions and will escalate the severity and risk until they either succeed or cause a Black Swan catastrophe. They (and their Iranian co-conspirators) were prepared to sacrifice about 150 lives if the air strikes had gone forward. That speaks to the evil that these people will stoop to in their quest to remove Trump from office. In a practical sense, the only way to inhibit this kind of activity is to push back and make it costly for them to proceed with this criminality. Barr has the means to expose the kickback payment from Iran to Obama's intermediaries. Connect the dots now.
ReplyDeleteAnother lesson, too, is that if Trump was ever inclined to think that he could sit back and leave the whole job to Barr--which I don't believe he was inclined to--then he now knows for sure that he needs to be intimately involved in draining the Swamp. Only Trump, ultimately, can do that. Barr can be a big help at DoJ--an extremely important focal point of the "resistance"--but Trump is the only one who can address personnel issues elsewhere.
DeleteAgreed. Trump hired Bolton to be his "Bad Cop" alter ego in foreign policy negotiations, and that likely provided some measure of leverage. But it turned out to be a negative trade-off as Bolton has done more harm than good and essentially functions as a Judas now. He can and should get rid of these Fifth Columnists as soon as possible.
DeleteI'm working on a post that goes into the possible connection of all this to impeachment.
Delete