The Coming War with Iran?

Shall the USA yield gracefully, or will there be spite and bile?

Knock everyone down, until you stand taller than the rest..

Here\’s a thought: If China is able to leverage technology and a state-managed economy to limit or reduce its carbon output (and if its BRI partners follow suit, using Chinese tech), then isn\’t the logical next step to call out a regressive, recalcitrant, science-denying, fundamentalist Amerikkka as a climatological terrorist state that\’s holding the world hostage — a lunatic nation that\’s a danger to itself and others?

How much cooling in the short and long term would result from the incineration of the US economy and three largest metros going up as dense particulate matter?

Well, so much for the idea that Trump would keep us out of stupid wars. I’d doubt even HRC despite her record would be this nuts. Plus Bolton is also nuts enough to want us to do regime change in Venezuela at the same time.

Meanwhile, the US continues to crumble into dust, bit by bit, ya know, “because we have no money to fix things!!” Who says that Trump is against shithole countries? He’s making the good ole USA into one right before our very eyes.

(Now our only hope is that Putin really DOES have the influence over Trump that the newspeakers say he does).

I was taught that the South was always going to lose the Civil War because in a cage match an industrial economy (the North) can always trounce an agrarian economy (the South). So, that is what I keep remembering when I see the U.S., which no longer has an industrial economy, rattle her sabers at China, the most powerful industrial economy in the world. The bombast and folly of Bolton and Pompeo are just a continuation of the noisy stupidity of the leadership of the old Confederacy.

Dimitri Orlov says that the rest of the world is quietly unhooking itself from U.S. financial and commercial domination. He says they continue to talk to the Americans for the same reason a hostage negotiator keeps talking to terrorists, the keep them distracted while they figure out how to free the hostages. Even though the U.S. is foolish enough to want a war we would certainly lose, it sounds like the rest of the world would rather just keep us distracted until they can pull the plug on the greenback. The day that happens, the U.S. falls apart without the carnage of a war that impacts other nations.

Trump is as bloodthirsty as any other American president. When American bloodlust is focused on the Middle East, Persian Gulf, and South Asia — as it has been for decades now — Trump’s itch to war appears boundless. The death and destruction already wrought through the region since Trump’s elevation to the White House (or was it a demotion?) is monumental but very much underreported. There is no doubt in my mind that if he were of a mind to he would order His Generals to obliterate Tehran in an instant. Presidents can do that. And Trump likes that kind of power and authority. Likes it very much indeed….

The question is whether anyone would stand in his way. Soon after his inauguration it was pretty obvious that most of his madness was ringfenced by “staff” if you will, and by the factionalism that permeates the higher reaches of the government and those it serves. There were certain things he would be allowed relatively free rein to do — scapegoating immigrants for example, or endless Twitter rages — but other things, no. He could threaten all he wanted, rage all he wanted, throw feces at press and media all he wanted, even cozy up to Putin if that’s what he wanted to do. But does he have the actual launch codes? Would His Generals obey if he ordered an invasion of Venezuela, Iran, or really any other country not currently under direct attack by the United States? Would they do his bidding if his bidding weren’t already approved by multiple layers of Pentagon planners?

We’ve already been told that “staff” routinely ignores or disobeys Trump when he gets wound up. Hint: this didn’t begin with Trump. Presidents are always ringfenced to one degree or another. But in this case particular dangers were identified early enough that it appears that apart from his Twitter rages and scapegoating attacks, he really isn’t able to do much of anything that isn’t vetted and approved by… who? That’s the question. Who does Our Government serve? Whose interests are dominant?

We know that Iran has been targeted for figurative or literal destruction for decades (see: Project for New American Century, c. 1998) Most of the other targets listed then have been bombed to smithereens already. Iran is clearly next because it’s practically the only one in the Middle East left standing — more or less.

But the Project goes well beyond destruction in the current war theatres. It includes the breakup of the Russian Federation and the disabling of China’s market rise. Even the seizure of Venezuelan (and any other) oil is indirectly part of the Project.

When you boil it down, it’s very simple-minded, and from all appearances, it is US Government Doctrine and has been for decades, and Trump, despite rhetoric and appearances, has done nothing to interfere. He’s too unstable to be allowed to carry out the Doctrine, but he seems on board with it (except for the Russian piece, but even there, patience is a virtue, no? And things are not always what they seem, are they?)

Our rulers have long believed that a little pain (for the Little People) in the short term is worth it for the hegemonic advantage in the long term. That’s the path we are still on. It’s hard to believe there won’t be an attack on Iran, if not a full scale invasion, sooner rather than later, regardless of Trump.

For all the horrors that will unleash, payback will be an uncompromising bitch.

Ponderer:

if Trump doesn’t make it to a second term his safety could be in jeopardy. Losing isn’t an option until the Executive cleans house. If he hadn’t won the first time, he could have been on trial for treason by now. His family would have been ruined for sure.

I don’t know where you are going with this, ponderer, but this is alarming. Micheal Cohen, who I figure knows Trump pretty danged well, says Trump will not go quietly if he loses in 2020. Seeing what you wrote (which makes sense) I would agree–if he loses he’s facing exposure, humiliation, and prosecution. So what does he have to lose by trying to hold on?

And maybe a (yet another) war would provide a ‘wag the dog’ moment to assist his re-election?

Though Trump does have this going for him–if the Democratic ‘wise men and women’ manage to nominate Biden (and I saw Chris Matthews on MSNBC last night leading the cheering section and railing against ‘the left’) then I’d say Trump wins in 2020. He wins because the Democratic establishment either hasn’t learned a thing, or that they’d rather lose than to have anyone with even milquetoast progressive positions win, or a combination of both.

i think you got it: all it takes is a competitive and viable trading system along with our Late Empire wanderings. i keep asking myself who’s gonna have the balls in the US to try SOMETHING constructive. I know that takes cooperation among us fallen angels. and that’s a big ask…

I knew America would invade Iran when I looked at the Belt and Road Initiative map, and saw the Silk Road belt run through Iran.

Ponderer:

What does he have to lose by trying to hold on the presidency after political defeat? Everything.

Now I don’t understand you previous point at all. If Trump is not guilty, he sure is acting like he’s guilty, and after leaving office he will face prosecution, humiliation, and very possibly jail time. The only thing that prevents that al that right now is him sitting in the Oval Office. The recent story by the NYT showing that his wealth is a fraud, that he’s lived beyond his means for a decade (maybe more) and had his daddy propping him up to keep his party going, suggest that a host of foreign players, including Putin, may have just become substitutes for ‘daddy’ and that is why Trump is so obsessed with not offending them and keeping them happy. It’s all beginning to fit together.

Trump’s best choice would be to resign, and have Pence pull a Ford and per-emptively pardon him immediately afterwards. But I doubt Trump will do that unless he’s facing the music–which is still unlikely.

This situation also shows how badly the current interpretations of the US Constitution work. Why would anyone think that ‘norms’ and precedence and customs should restrain a bad president, which seems to be the position of all Democratic and most Republican critics of Trump? Our safeguards should not be ‘norms’, what are needed are electric fences–you touch and them and you’re automatically zapped! A president should not be protected against removal and punishment by having one or both house of Congress held by his political party or allies.

What should have never been set as the rule is the opinion that a sitting president can’t be indicted–we *do* have a vice president, after all–and for serious crimes involving alleged governmental or Constitutional transgressions (I agree for lesser crimes the indictments could wait until the president is out of office; ditto civil suits). If the presidentis indicted, he/she simply steps down and the vice president assumes office in his/her stead, and then stands trial as an ordinary citizen. If acquitted, the president would resume office; if convicted, he/she is permanently removed–no Congressional supermajority and process should be required.

I would keep impeachment, but not so much for illegalities as policy differences. If the president were to take a policy course so repugnant to a supermajority in Congress–and hence, presumably, the public–then I’m ok with a mechanism for their removal for that cause. The problem with American governance is that we’ve not removed enough presidents, not that we’ve removed too many.

It is not the Deep state that is threatening to take the US on the warpath. I agree the deep state is awful and has done some evil things, but they are not the cause of all evil like you make them out to be. They did not cause the Iraq war, to-date the worst foreign policy blunder of this century. The ‘deep state’ is against closer ties to Russia, I agree, and probably for regime change via some means in Venezuela, but they were never for moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, never for tearing up the Iran nuclear deal, and never for labeling the Iranian military a terrorist organization. No, all these decisions were driven by neocon ideologues and/or factions within the Republican Party (the pro-Israel stance is all Christian Zionism and premillenialism). Trump’s foreign policies, like his domestic, have been a fraud and con job; like Obama, he was vague enough during the 2016 campaign to allow people to pour their hopes into him by latching on to specific soundbites (like “no more stupid wars” or “really great healthcare”, or “raise taxes on hedge fund managers”).

The Deep State is a label for a political phenomenon that is an expression I suppose of the iron law of institutions. The iron law is basically that all hierarchical organization tends to degenerate into patterns of self-serving elite oligarchy. Whatever the ostensible, founding purpose of the organization, there is a tendency for socio-political processes such careerism and centralization of power to subvert that purpose in favor of serving the needs of the staff and the elite leadership. The organization will become less efficient in carrying out its ostensible purposes as it becomes better at serving the needs of its elite leadership and career staff. This degeneration, if it goes on long enough, will develop its own rationales and protective ideologies. As it has for the neoliberal economic policy establishment and the neocon foreign policy blob.

The Deep State is “all-powerful” only in the sense of having all the power, but inherent in the concept as I understand it is that the Deep State is profoundly and thoroughly incompetent. Its incompetence is a chief reason to want to overthrow it.

Once you realize that “the agenda” of the Deep State is the self-licking ice cream cone of perpetual war and the surveillance state, you realize there are so many “leaks” that they form a wall of white noise.

Rained today, everyone knows CIA hangs out in trenchcoats. So obviously deep state.

@ bruce

Drop by Pat Lang’s site and look for his take on Communists. That’s what I mean. Those people who spend their careers in the intelligence sector or military have their own kind of group think. It makes sense, how do you get people to be willing to kill their fellow human beings? Lots of training and indoctrination. Some of that is bound to stick and effect those people for the rest of their lives.
You can say the chicken hawks don’t believe it and I’d agree as they haven’t had decades of environmental conditioning. For those with careers in the bowels of the NSA,CIA,military, etc. I don’t think we can write them off as cynical traitors so easily. I also think the amount of propaganda the country targets against is citizens mediates any guilt they may have for not recognizing the truth of things.

For instance, there is no chance for us to “win” a war without investing in it. I mean look at the steps we took after WWII to ensure our victory versus our ME strategy of blowing stuff up and hoping we can bribe the survivors. We can’t occupy Iraq, we never could. It doesn’t matter how great a general you are. From what I hear in the military the top ranks *tend* to be ass kissing careerists, but the politicians push the rest out. I still remember the military saying we would need 600k – 1 million solders to take and hold Iraq. There’s no way that could happen so the neocons pulled the wool over our eyes yet again by twisting words like “victory” and “win” to something entirely corrupt. They still use it when they talk about Venezuela and Iran and the country still hears something different. As a society we gaslight ourselves constantly, one advertisement, sporting event, school day at a time.

What I still can’t get my head around is the extent to which we have become the countries we used to contrast ourselves with. What’s the saying — be careful who you choose as enemies for you will become just like them?

I grew up on dramatizations of evil Nazis demanding “Your papers!” on the trains, beating helpless prisoners, and sending uniformed thugs against citizens. Now we all will need “real ID” to travel, we “tortured some folks” (Obama) but it was all with good intent so there’s nothing to feel bad about, and we don’t react to cops in full battle gear being active at protests.

And we were free, as opposed to the Commies, who ran their government in secret, wouldn’t let their citizens hear information from outside Russia so they jammed Radio Free Europe, and had elections with the Party pre-approved candidate already selected. Now we have a thoroughly secret government that prosecutes whistleblowers, we regard information from Russia as an unacceptable interference in our politics, and at least one of the two private organizations who control our elections preach against primaries.

Can it be true that people who used to preen on American freedom now support surveillance because you don’t have to worry if you’re not doing anything wrong!? That’s a mighty deterioration of belief.

One of the reasons not touched on for why Trump set aside the JCPOA with Iran has, I think, to do with Trump’s wounded pride over being roasted by Obama at a White House Correspondents Dinner and also with Trump’s deep anti-Blackitic animus against Obama just on racial principles.
And since JCPOA is rightly regarded as a positive accomplishment ( Obama’s single only positive accomplishment in office), Trump hates Obama for being publicly admired for JCPOA; and Trump wants to destroy JCPOA to get even with Obama for being celebrated for Obama’s positive JCPOA achievement.

( In all fairness, now that I think about it, there is one other positive Obama accomplishment . . . the Car Company Cramdown. Some thinned-out pieces of GM were saved in hopes they would/will do better in the future. The thinned-out skeleton of Chrysler was successfully sold to Fiat. The anti-workeritic worker-hating anti-workerites wanted to put GM and Chrysler into roach motel liquidation in order to exterminate those bussinesses in order to exterminate the UAW. And the Cramdown was a better outcome than that would have been),

@ bruce wilder,

This upcoming primary season offers a few possible alternatives. I think of them as the 4DDs . . . the 4 Decent Democrats. The rest of the Democrats could be labeled however one likes, I suppose.

The DemParty hopes to prevent a 4DD Democrat from getting nominated by running so many Catfood Candidates that no one PrezNom seeker will get the magic 50% plus one. Now that I have come to realize that a lot of the “pledged delegates” are pledged for the First Ballot only, I understand that a lot of those “pledged delegates” are riding one of the 4DDs to get into the Convention Hall, and if Ballot Number One fails to deliver a nominee on the first ballot; then those “released-from-their-one-ballot-pledge” delegates will vote for the Catfood Candidate of their true heart’s desire.

The only hope the 4DD supporters have is that the 4DDs have a core of bitter-end delegates who will keep voting 4DD and will obstruct the Party’s effort to close the balloting and will force the assembled delegates to undergo hundreds or thousands of rounds of balloting. Eventually the Party Leaders will force a Brokered Convention amid such an ugly hateful mood that the millions of 4DD supporters will realize what an evil enemy the Catfood Democrat Party really is.

Wouldn’t it be just perfect if the Brokered Convention delivers us DemPrezNom Joe Biden . . . and Running Mate Hillary Clinton?

Its HIS turn!
Its HER turn!
Its BOTH of their turns at the SAME TIME!
Isn’t it great? We can be with HIM’nHER toGETHer!

How could Trump POSSibly beat that?