TRUMP'S CONVENIENT LIES

 

I recently wrote an article about how Trump’s actions in Iraq and Iran have united opposition against the United States and how repeatedly making big threats of military action then backing down when his warnings are ignored has damaged both his, and America’s credibility. That was a policy discussion about Trump’s lack of strategic thinking in the Middle East and the dangers of unintended consequences of American policy in the region. At the time I didn’t expect the need to revisit the topic in the near future, however since then more information has come to light that has revealed a web of lies the Trump administration has told about the events surrounding the hostilities between the U.S. and Iran. 

Politicians often stretch the truth or have selective memories when advocating for this bill or that regulation. But when it comes to military action, we need to be able to have faith that our leaders are being truthful in their rationale for using force. It’s one thing to try and frame the situation in a way that supports the President’s actions, that’s expected. But the argument needs to be grounded in facts. Otherwise the President loses credibility with the American public and our military allies the next time an emergency arises, and our adversaries will grow stronger and bolder. It has now become clear that many of the statements put out by Trump and his administration in support of his actions were lies.

In the events leading up to the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani the White House’s narrative of the situation in Iraq was misleading and simplistic, but had at least some basis in truth. For years American forces have had to deal with sporadic attacks by a group known as Kataib Hezbollah (KH). KH is an Iraqi Shia paramilitary group that has received much of its backing from Iran and has a strong anti-American stance. Although they’ve been active for more than a decade their strength has grown in recent years. There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that they were behind several attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq over the last several months including one in December that killed an American contractor and wounded several troops. 

However, the White House has put the blame for these attacks squarely on the Iranians, ignoring the fact that the group’s members are largely Iraqis and that American actions in the country have helped drive KH’s growing membership. By allowing America to get baited into a military response that completely excluded Iraqi forces, it only served as a recruiting bonanza for KH. The question of how to respond to insurgent attacks without feeding into their anti-American narrative is tricky and each of the last two administrations have struggled with the same problem. However, putting all the blame on Iran without at least acknowledging the growing resentment within Iraq towards the continued presence of American troops is disingenuous at best.

Still, at least through the Dec 27 American attack on five Iranian/HK facilities inside Iraq there was some underlying basis of truth in Trump’s narrative of events, even if he was guilty of massaging the facts to justify his actions.

The real problem begins with the killing of Soleimani and the Trump administration’s attempts to justify it after the fact. The first outright lie was when President Trump said Soleimani was actively planning attacks on four U.S. embassies. This was followed by a statement from Sec. of State Mike Pompeo stating, “we had specific information on an imminent threat, and those threats from him included attacks on U.S. embassies. Period. Full stop.” However, we now know that was entirely made up. Trump authorized the killing of Soleimani seven months earlier, although that authorization required a final approval before carrying it out. 

After the attack, Senate leaders received an intelligence briefing on the evidence used in justifying this assassination and apparently there was no evidence of an imminent attack. Republican Mike Lee of Utah called the intelligence briefing the “worst briefing I’ve had on a military issue in my nine years” in the Senate. It has since been leaked from multiple sources that the President was given a security briefing in which it was stated there was an ongoing threat to American interests including embassies. So the truth was, there was no intelligence of an imminent attack on American embassies. Trump just seized on one small part of a security briefing and exaggerated it well beyond what was indicated by the intelligence and used that to justify the assassination he’d authorized seven months earlier

The next big lie Trump told relates to the use of force, or lack thereof, in response to the Iranian attack on the Al-Assad Air Base Iraq. After the assassination of Soleimani, Trump tweeted that the U.S. had targeted 52 sites in Iran that, “will be hit very fast and very hard” if Iran retaliates. That’s a very bold and specific threat. The problem is Trump seems to genuinely want to avoid a major use of military force that is likely to draw America into a lengthy conflict. However, he also distrusts diplomacy, so he tends to rely on making big threats of using military force without any desire to follow through on the threat. When Iran called his bluff and launched 15 missiles at American bases in Iraq, Trump had painted himself into a corner

Trump wanted to avoid a war with Iran but needed a way to save face after his empty threats of retaliation. Like usual, Trump lied his way out of the jam. The day after the Iranian attack on American facilities in Iraq Trump stated, “we suffered no casualties . . . only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases.” At the time I wrote my last article on the conflict with Iran I took Trump at his word on this claim but also noted he was failing to live up to his promise of action if the Iranians retaliated. Apparently, Trump had calculated that as long as the Iranian attack didn’t do any significant damage, he could back away from his threat of using military force without suffering any political damage. 

But of course, it was all a lie. Turns out there were 11 American casualties that had to be medically evacuated out of the country to receive treatment in Kuwait and Germany. The claim of only “minimal damage” was also flat out wrong. There were at least 4 structures at the al-Assad Air Base that took direct hits and suffered serious damage. I can only imagine what was going through the minds of the Soldiers and Airmen at this base and the evacuated troops when they heard the President’s remarks.

At a minimum Trump overstated Iran’s responsibility for the attacks on American bases and the embassy in Iraq rather than the homegrown Iraqi hostility to our presence. Trump then flat out lied about the justification for assassinating Soleimani.  Then he lied again about American casualties and the damage to the American bases so he could save face for not retaliating against Iran. 

The thing is these lies were all unnecessary if we’d had competent leadership. Soleimani’s assassination was likely a strategic mistake, but they could have just said the truth that he was backing Iraqi anti-American forces without making up the imminent attacks on our embassies. Trump was right to not start a war with Iran, but the problem was he shouldn’t have made an ultimatum about what our response would be to a retaliatory strike from Iran. He could have simply stated there would be an American response without specifying what the response would be. That would have left him with options such as sanctions or other non-military responses. 

Trump has a long history of bullying those that oppose his business ventures through threats of lawsuits, donations to political rivals, public ridicule or just ignoring the law and daring his rivals to sue him. For the most part, he’s been able to get what he

wants by being willing to be a bigger asshole than those who oppose him. But what works in business often fails to motivate sovereign states with armies. His threats have failed to motivate North Korea to give up their weapons of mass destruction, and Iran has clearly shown they aren’t intimidated by Trump’s empty threats either. Trump sees everything as a business transaction, but when countries don’t act like businesses, he’s shown a complete inability to be effective.