President Donald Trump walks with the Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Tuesday, March 14, 2017, along the Colonnade outside the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)rrr
At The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan warns against backing the Saudis against the Iranians. Pat notes that the current heightened tensions are a result of pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal at the behest of America’s neocon faction. Neither the president nor most Americans want a war with Iran. Pat wonders how America can pull back now. He writes (abridged):
President Donald Trump does not want war with Iran.
America does not want war with Iran. Even the Senate Republicans are advising against military action in response to that attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities.
“All of us (should) get together and exchange ideas, respectfully, and come to a consensus — and that should be bipartisan,” says Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch of Idaho.
When Lindsey Graham said the White House had shown “weakness” and urged retaliatory strikes for what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calls Iran’s “act of war,” the president backhanded his golfing buddy:
“It’s very easy to attack, but if you ask Lindsey … ask him how did going into the Middle East … work out. And how did Iraq work out?”
Still, if neither America nor Iran wants war, what has brought us to the brink?
Answer: The policy imposed by Trump, Pompeo and John Bolton after our unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
Our course was fixed by the policy we chose to pursue.
With his U.S.-built and bought air force, the Crown Prince has made a hell on earth of Yemen to crush the Houthis rebels who hold the capital.
The question President Trump confronts today:
How does he get his country back off the limb he climbed out on while listening to the Republican neocons and hawks he defeated in 2016, but who have had an inordinate influence over his foreign policy?
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