Gulf of Tonkin is it?
Is Trump hoping to start a war with Iran?
DoJ investigating Trump’s opponents. A European neo-fascist getting red carpet treatment in Oval. War plans for Iran. All out trade war with China. These are all things happening right now.
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) May 14, 2019
Are they working on the pretext even now? There’s a hole in a Norwegian oil tanker anchored off the UAE.
The damage appeared relatively minor, and no one has been officially blamed.
And yet, there are growing fears that this mysterious, obscure incident could become a catalyst — accidental or otherwise — that inflames the already knife-edge tensions between the United States and Iran.
Or, rather, between Trump and those scary Mooooslim guys over there in the hot place.
Since his election in 2016, President Donald Trump and his team have consistently taken a more hawkish stance toward [Iran] than the Obama administration.
The president withdrew from a landmark deal designed to curb Iran’s nuclear program last year. Trump complained that, although Iran was complying, the agreement was too soft.
Then the U.S. deployed an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf last week to counter alleged threats from Tehran.
And then settled down to wait. It didn’t take long.
What worries some experts in Europe is the bellicose rhetoric being exchanged between the U.S. and Iran.
Never mind who was behind Sunday’s attack, it is the mere uncertainty surrounding it, combined with the warlike words exchanged by both sides, that escalates the risk for some misunderstanding leading to war, so this theory goes.
“Regardless of whether these ships got hit by Iranians or not, the Americans and the Iranians have gotten themselves into this cycle where neither seems to be able to back down from making belligerent statements,” according to Michael Stephens, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.
The tough talk employed by Trump, Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton carries significant and perhaps unintended and unforeseen risks, Stephens said.
Or perhaps intended and foreseen and hotly desired.
As the New Yorker magazine pointed out Monday, the U.S. does have “a long history of provoking, instigating, or launching wars based on dubious, flimsy, or manufactured threats.”
Perhaps the most famous of these were the disputed Gulf of Tonkin attacks in 1964 that led to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
Disputed? I think the correct word there is “wholly discredited.”
War with Iran would not be a good thing.
The hope is it will get him his next term.
It would be an unmitigated disaster.
I don’t think Trump wants an actual war.
Trump has accurately figured out where the bulk of the American public is on foreign affairs: they love America to be TOUGH, to be macho, to put them furriners (especially the non-white ones) in their place, BUT they don’t want to actually pay a real price for it. No soldiers coming home in body bags, at least not in large numbers.
That by itself is hardly a new or difficult insight from Trump (or me), of course. But Trump has exploited his willingness to flat-out lie to try to maximize the macho bullying without actually going to war. And so we have the bellicose threats to North Korea, followed by a high-profile summit where he lies about getting a deal that is good for America in order to justify backing down substantively. I expect he’ll repeat this with Iran — escalate tensions with the idea of swooping in later with a summit and a “deal” that brings “peace in our time.” A real man’s deal, of course, not that weak deal that that pussy Obama negotiated!
Certainly his base is ok with war and depending on how they use it, there are enough others that will be distracted if not out and out fooled into backing him.
I should add: as with any form of brinksmanship, there’s a danger that Trump’s “tiptoe up to edge for appearance’s sake” strategy will inadvertently end up in war. Especially so considering that (1) Trump is an idiot and a poor manager; and (2) some of Trump’s underlings, i.e. Bolton, would be quite happy to go to war.
Remember the Maine! (Which was sunk by an internal explosion, but served as a splendid cause for war with Spain.)
How about we just go to war with Brazil instead?
It’s got something for everyone: killing people south of the border, fuels the military industrial complex, and there’s even an environmentalist angle.
Everybody wins!