IT WAS ALL HOT AIR

 

Over the last couple of days Trump supporters have been heralding the fact that we’re not going to war with Iran as evidence of Trump’s mastery of foreign policy. So, let’s just look at what Trump has managed to accomplish in Iran. When he took office, Iran was in compliance with a treaty that was moving them further from obtaining nuclear weapons and bringing them into the international community of nations. We know they were in compliance because the treaty called for rigorous inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency which repeatedly verified their compliance. Basically, the tensions between the U.S. and Iran were at a relatively low level and there was even limited cooperation in fighting our common enemy, ISIS. Trump withdrew from the treaty, over the objection of his defense secretary, and promised a better deal. Where’s the deal? Iran is closer to having a nuclear weapon today because of Trump’s actions.

Before this latest series of incidents Iran was very divided internally. Iran had the largest and most violent anti-government protests since the revolution in 1979 last year. Protesters destroyed hundreds of state-owned banks, several Islamic centers and anti-American billboards the government had put up. The government responded to these protests with violent repression leading to a reported 1,500 protesters murdered in the streets by government forces. However, apparently Soleimani was seen as being above the politics and his assassination has brought the strong majority of Iran together in antiAmerican outrage. The Iraqi legislature has voted to kick out the American troops, although it is not clear when or if they will be leaving, and we’ve suspended anti-ISIS operations, the whole reason we’re there. Uniting a divided Iran, turning Iraq away from being an important regional ally and suspending the fight against ISIS doesn’t sound like winning to me. The Trump administration has been a foreign policy nightmare.

If it turns out that Iran shot down the Russian airliner, as it now appears likely, Iran will have to accept most of the responsibility for that action. However, Trump’s decision to ratchet up tensions in the region also played a role. It’s been reported that we’ve flown stealth jets over Iran in recent days, as a result their air defenses were presumably on high alert. It seems someone screwed up and got trigger happy and accidentally shot down the civilian airliner. Iran will likely be held responsible for this action, but if it wasn’t for Trump’s escalation of tensions those people would most likely still be alive. This is just one example of the unintended consequences of taking military action that it seems unlikely the White House thought through.

Finally, the one good thing I can say about Trump is he seems to genuinely want to avoid getting bogged down in a foreign war. But the problem is he keeps making these big statements then not following through. Obama was rightly criticized for his declaring a red line in sand concerning Syrian chemical weapons use, then when they used chemical weapons, not taking military action. It should be noted that even though Trump has been critical of Obama’s decision, at the time he tweeted opposition to taking military action.

On two occasions Trump has made big public threats of using military force, then when the threats were ignored failed to follow through on the threat. In August of 2017, Trump stated he would bring, “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” if Kim Jung Un continued to threaten America or fired any more long-range missiles. The next day Kim threatened to fire missiles at Guam and two weeks later fired two missiles, one of which traveled over 1,700 miles. Trump took no military action in response, but instead acquiesced to Kim’s demand that America cancel the annual military exercises we conduct with the South Korean military and got nothing in return but empty promises.

Now in 2020, after assassinating Soleimani, Trump warned Iran that if they retaliate, he’d target 52 important sites in Iran including cultural sites, stating they, “WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.” The capital letters are directly from Trump’s tweet, apparently to add emphasis that he’s serious. First, he’s threatening a war crime by targeting cultural sites. I mean, how does the President of the United States not know what every Private in the Army is taught? Second, that’s a very precise threat, retaliate and you will be hit very fast and very hard. It’s very reminiscent of his threat to Kim Jung Un in 2017, and just like his prior threat, it was all hot air. Iran launched 12 missiles at American sites within Iraq and no response other than an odd tweet stating, “All is well!” If he continues with the North Korean precedent, he’ll be stating he’s in love with Iranian President Rouhani before long.

Of course, it’s good that he didn’t rush into a stupid war, but he shouldn’t have made the threat in the first place. Republicans, including Trump, have been extremely vocal in their criticism of Obama for making a threat he wasn’t prepared to follow through on, yet now that Trump has done the exact same thing twice it’s all crickets from the Republicans. From his repeated withdraws from treaties, to his unilateral withdrawal from Syria and repeated empty threats of military action he’s projecting to the world that the word of Donald Trump is meaningless, and even worse, the word of America is equally worthless.