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Sunday, June 16, 2019

No War With Iran!

After the recent attacks on oil tankers in the Sea of Oman and Strait of Hormuz by an unknown attacker, Trump and his warmongering cronies are now hastily blaming Iran for these attacks.  But there is plenty of reason to believe they are being, shall we say, "economical with the truth".

The timing alone is suspicious, as Trump has every reason to "wag the dog" to deflect from his ever-mounting scandals including, but not limited to, Russiagate.  Also, the evidence is lacking and what little there is, just doesn't really seem to add up.  And we know that Trump has been hell-bent on provoking Iran ever since pulling out of the nuclear deal last year.  Time will tell, of course, but this really has "false flag" written all over it.

Besides, going to war with Iran would most likely be a disaster of epic proportions, and certainly not something to take lightly.   And even if Iran does somehow turn out to be the culprit, the fact remains that the ships attacked were not even American tankers (they were Norwegian and Japanese), and fully zero Americans were harmed in the process.  In fact, this was apparently a "property damage only" (PDO) incident.  So let's NOT fall for this would-be modern-day Gulf of Tonkin incident and get sucked into yet another decades-long quagmire again.

The best foreign policy can be summed up in four words:  "first, do no harm".  Seriously, this is not a game, and the stakes have never been higher now.

UPDATE:  Just a few days later on June 20, Iran confirmed that they shot down an unmanned American spy drone (again, PDO) that they claim was flying in their airspace, while the Trump administration claims it was over international waters.  Time will tell who is telling the truth, perhaps even both if, for example, it turns out that the drone entered Iranian airspace first but was subsequently shot down over international waters.  Maritime borders can be tricky and nuanced.  Regardless, this is still not a good reason to go to war with Iran.

It is exceeding unlikely that the Orange Cheeto in Chief actually wants a shooting war with Iran.  He himself has said as much.  He would rather just bluff to make himself look tough while distracting from his myriad scandals closing in on him in the late stage of his failed presidency.   And his puppetmaster Putin apparently doesn't want him to go to war with his buddy Iran, either.  But now that Iran apparently called his bluff, and Bolton and Pompeo are still itching for war, the United States is now in a very precarious situation thanks to Trump's stupid bear-poking saber-rattling routines, and a war may still happen inadvertently in spite of him canceling it at the last minute.  He is clearly like a crackhead playing with matches and gasoline, and every day he seems more and more unfit for the office of dogcatcher, let alone for the office of the Presidency.

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