His critics claim that our Commander-in-Chief has never done anything, ever, for anyone but himself. Now he has made liars out of all of them.
It is no secret that he has long coveted—one might even say that he has lusted after—a Nobel Peace Prize. The chances of that were never good, except in his dreams. After last weekend, though, his only shot will be through an invasion of Norway.
Why did he make such a sacrifice? We may never know, thanks to our Commander’s expertise in the fine art of Strategic Ambiguity. Indeed, our Great Leader’s ability to keep adversaries off balance through obfuscation is so phenomenal that it deserves a name of its own. Our suggestion: Strategic Incoherence.
Four days after we attacked Iran, there’s one thing we can say for certain: we may never know the answer to the question, “why?” The problem is not that we lack for answers. The problem is that we have too many.
El Commandante announced that the war had begun Saturday, via his privately-owned propaganda channel. He said then that its purpose was “to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” That rationale was disputed the next day by Mark Warner, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said on CNN, “I saw no intelligence that Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of preemptive strike against the United States of America.” For context, Warner is a former Boy Scout. The Leader of the Free World is a felon and a golf cheat with six bankruptcies and two divorces under his lengthy belt.
Just to be pedantic, we’ll note here that this war appears to be, like so many of our Chief Executive’s innovative methods of governing, technically speaking, illegal, the power to make war being reserved, according to the Constitution, to that moribund institution, Congress.
It has long been obvious that the Oval Office Occupant intended to conduct this war. All those ships did not just drift haphazardly into the region. It was surprising, though, on Monday, to hear from the U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, that it was Benjamin Netanyahu who decided when.
“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” he said. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”
Within hours the Secretary was contradicted by the person who is accompanied at all times by a briefcase containing the codes he will use should he decide to launch a nuclear war. “No,” he said. “I might have forced their hand.” Because no one tells him what to do, especially if what he is doing—starting a war in the Middle East—is exactly what he promised he would not do, during the election. To further de-clarify the situation, the person who declared himself, during his first term, “the chief law enforcement officer of the country,” actually obeyed the law for once, sending a letter to Congress declaring that the purpose of Operation Epic Fury was to “neutralize Iran’s malign activities.” I.e., it said nothing.
The next day the same guy offered a different reason for his war: “if we didn’t do what we’re doing right now, you would have had a nuclear war, and they would have taken out many countries.” This curious answer creates two mutually-exclusive possibilities: either Iran re-constituted an alleged but un-proven nuclear weapons program just eight months after it was “completely obliterated,” or the word of the Obliterator-in-Chief may not be entirely trustworthy.
The official line on the progress of the war quotes the man in mid-fall from a skyscraper window: “So far, so good.” Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan? Never heard of ’em. Among the obstacles which lie ahead: the administration has already killed the Iranian officials it had hoped would succeed the late Ayatollah, and blown up the building in which he would have been chosen.
It’s an ill wind, though, that blows no one good. On February 28th, just hours before the bombs started dropping, six anonymous gamblers placed bets on Polymarket—one of the innumerable blessings brought to us by Silicon Valley—that the war would begin that very day. They reaped a total of $1.2 million. Meanwhile, six members of the U.S. Army Reserve were killed in Kuwait when their flimsy trailer was hit by an Iranian drone or missile.
If support for this adventure wanes, it could worsen the GOP’s chances in the mid-term elections. Unlike mere wars, that’s a truly important matter, so there is an actual plan: a draft executive order, written by Donald Trump’s allies. By claiming there has been Chinese interference in U.S. elections, Trump would have an excuse to declare a national emergency and take control of polling places, ballot boxes, and whatnot. Easy-peasy win.
Sounds scary, right? But don’t worry. He says trust him—he won’t do it.