President Donald J. Trump boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md. Tuesday, May 14, 2019, en route to Chennault International Airport in Lake Charles, La. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Pat Buchanan lays out an interesting theory today on Iran, the Never Trump movement, and the President at The American Conservative. Buchanan suggests that Never Trumpers want to start a war with Iran because they know it will finally bring an end to his presidency. With Americans so fatigued after nearly two decades of Middle Eastern wars, any president who begins a new one will surely suffer at the polls. Perhaps Buchanan is correct. He writes (abridged):
Speaking on state TV of the prospect of a war in the Gulf, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei seemed to dismiss the idea.
“There won’t be any war. …We don’t seek a war, and [the Americans] don’t either. They know it’s not in their interests.”
The ayatollah’s analysis is correct. Consider the consequences of a war with the United States for Iran.
Iran’s hundreds of swift boats and handful of submarines would be sunk. Its ports would be mined or blockaded. Oil exports and oil revenue would halt. Airfields and missile bases would be bombed. The Iranian economy would crash. Iran would need years to recover.
And though Iran’s nuclear sites are under constant observation and regular inspection, they would be destroyed.
Tehran knows this, which is why, despite 40 years of hostility, it’s never sought war with the “Great Satan” and does not want this conflict to which we seem to be edging closer every day.
Who wants us to plunge back into the Middle East, to fight a new and wider war than the ones we already fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen?
Answer: Pompeo and Bolton, Bibi Netanyahu, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Sunni kings, princes, emirs, sultans, and the other assorted Jeffersonian democrats on the south shore of the Persian Gulf.
And lest we forget, the Never Trumpers and neocons in exile nursing their bruised egos, whose idea of sweet revenge is a U.S. return to the Mideast in a war with Iran. That, they think, will finally bring an end to the Trump presidency.
Read more here.
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