https://truthout.org/…/trump-never-cared-about-ending-forev…
Op-Ed
Politics And Elections
Op-Ed
Politics And Elections
Trump Never Cared About Ending “Forever Wars.” He Just Wanted His Own War.
by Heather Digby Parton
January 6, 2020
Salon
by Heather Digby Parton
January 6, 2020
Salon
PHOTO: Protesters hold a portrait of Donald Trump splattered with
paint during a rally in front of the U.S. Embassy in Manila on January
6, 2020, demonstrating against the U.S. strike that killed Iranian
commander Qassim Suleimani in Iraq. TED ALJIBE / AFP via Getty Images
For all the talk about Donald Trump wanting to end the “forever wars,” I
think we knew what he was really talking about, don’t we? He wanted to
end the “Bush-Obama” wars because his only real foreign policy has been
to reverse anything his predecessors did. That includes all of them
going back to at least Franklin D. Roosevelt, and maybe Abe Lincoln.
It’s been clear from the beginning that Trump had no real understanding
of world affairs or history, beyond a vague notion that America has
become weak and feckless due to our foolish adherence to silly legal and
moral restraints on our behavior. Despite our economic and military
dominance in every corner of the globe, he feels the U.S. has been
humiliated by strongmen who think we’re soft. It is the worldview of a
spoiled child.
It was inevitable that he would one day decide to
demonstrate military strength to prove his mettle, and entirely
predictable that he would do it impulsively at a moment of extreme
political danger. His anger and frustration over the impeachment process
have been palpable. He’s been way in over his head from the start, and
the stress of trying to do a job he is so clearly unqualified to do has
undoubtedly frayed his nerves. He was going to lash out — it was only a
question of when and where.
Trump has been alienating allies and
kissing up to adversaries since he took office, so there’s nothing
unusual in that. But his behavior in terms of national security has been
increasingly erratic for the last few months. Obviously, there was the
bizarre Ukraine scheme that got him impeached. Last summer he abruptly
aborted a retaliatory bombing strike against Iran after it was already,
in his words, “cocked and loaded,” for stated reasons that made little
sense. The only explanation that anyone came up with was that he’d been
talking to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson (who occupies the Middle East
contrarian position at Fox News) who told him that the Trump base was
tired of war.
Shortly after that Trump pulled another abrupt
move, this time in Syria when he announced he was pulling American
troops out of northern Syria and had given a green light to Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to fulfill his long-held wish to invade
and displace hundreds of thousands of Kurds, whose fighters had been
working alongside Americans in the war against ISIS. Again, Trump gave
the excuse that he was fulfilling his campaign promise to end the war,
but it was clear he’d just made the decision impulsively without any
thought to the consequences. Someone apparently convinced him that he
should keep troops in the region to “guard the oil,” which made him
happy, and that was that. The Kurds are still paying the price.
Then there was that weird plan to invite Taliban leaders to Camp David
to sign a peace deal that didn’t exist and the pardoning and palling
around with accused war criminals over the past few weeks. All these
stops and starts happened quite publicly on Trump’s ungovernable Twitter
feed and without any of the normal consultations with Congress or even
his own advisers. Each time, it gets leaked that administration
officials have been taken by surprise, and there seems to be little
understanding of Trump’s rationale.
This latest decision was
different. Iraq has been heating up with protests for many weeks. The
shelling that killed an American contractor, as well as the protests at
the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, were obviously occupying the attention of
the Pentagon and the administration’s national security advisers. Trump
is reportedly terrified of a Benghazi situation on his watch, so the
embassy protests got his attention. He was still smarting after being
called weak by Iran hawks after calling off the bombing last summer. So
he was ready for some action.
According to the New York Times,
Pentagon officials offered the assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem
Soleimani as an extreme option, under the assumption that Trump, like
presidents before him, would choose a more prudent course. Why they
would have thought that, considering who he is and how he’s been acting
for the past few months, doesn’t say much for the judgment of Defense
Secretary Mark Esper or his aides, particularly since Trump is already
at the most precarious moment of his presidency.
Until now, each
time Trump was tempted to take forceful military action he either hedged
or backed off. This time he went with the most extreme option,
reportedly under the influence of the most hawkish members of his
administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice
President Mike Pence. He ignored protocol once again and failed to
notify Congress or key U.S. allies (even as he blabbed to his wealthy
customers at Mar-a-Lago that they could expect something “big” to
happen.) He has doubled down on this whole thing every day since the
assassination, tweeting threats to commit war crimes against Iran and
demanding that the Iraqi government pay for the costs of the American
invasion and occupation, or face crippling sanctions if they now insist
that U.S. troops leave the country.
Aside from the twisted psychology that drives all of Trump’s decisions, why has he gone so completely off the rails now?
The most obvious reason, of course, is that he’s being impeached and he
decided to “wag the dog” to distract the attention from that
high-stakes political battle. Throughout the holiday season, one
damaging Ukraine story after another came tumbling out of various FOIA
requests and reports in major newspapers, which have made the
president’s unwillingness to release documents and allow witnesses to
testify in the Senate trial look worse and worse. There are even a few
cracks appearing in the solid Republican wall, with some senators
starting to say they were open to witnesses, while Democrats have not
broken ranks in either house of Congress. Trump was clearly worried that
the whole thing was hurtling out of control.
He is also clearly
spooked by the rift among conservative evangelicals. He even felt the
need to hold a rally in a Florida church last Friday to shore up the
faithful, where he spoke about his decision to order Soleimani’s
assassination. Nothing will make the religious right happier than the
prospect of a Middle East conflagration, which at least some
evangelicals believe will lead to the End of Days and the Rapture. It
wouldn’t be entirely surprising if one of his more cunning advisers,
such as Pence, whispered in his ear that his hardcore Christian
supporters would appreciate a display of muscle in that region.
Finally, Trump has been bragging about his shiny, expensive, massive
military build-up for at least the past two years. He portrays it as his
single greatest achievement. Did you think a man like him wouldn’t ever
want to show off his brand new toys? Of course he would. He was just
saving it for a moment when (in his mind) it would do him the most good.
Trump may be unbalanced but he’s always self-serving. And he has a
feral survival instinct that he always relies on when the walls start to
close in. Will it save him one more time or has his luck — and ours —
finally run out.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Heather Parton is from Santa Monica, California. She founded the blog Hullabaloo.
PHOTO: Protesters hold a portrait of Donald Trump splattered with
paint during a rally in front of the U.S. Embassy in Manila on January
6, 2020, demonstrating against the U.S. strike that killed Iranian
commander Qassim Suleimani in Iraq. TED ALJIBE / AFP via Getty Images
