Ready for War with Iran?
The Trump administration has been spoiling for war with Iran almost since the election of 2016. This article, which I posted in the spring of 2017, makes this obvious. Now we have Trump's decision to kill Iran's top ranking general, Qassim Suleimani, which can only escalate an already tense situation in the region. Anything is possible here, including wider war and major economic disruptions.
A couple of years ago, I remember writing that it wouldn't surprise me to see a conflict with Iran in 2020, timed to coincide with the presidential election. And I'm hardly the only one to have predicted this. Trump does not want to lose the election. The question is: What is he prepared to do to guarantee victory, if only in his own mind? Is he willing to risk a devastating war in the Middle East? And who will act to stop him?
Trump fancies himself a tough guy, and practices posing like Winston Churchill. With a Republican Party willing to rubber stamp his every action and impulse, and with a Democratic Party that eagerly issues blank checks to the Pentagon, who is to stop Trump from bellicose actions that could lead, yet again, to a disastrous war in the Middle East?