All I can say is “WTF,” or rather the words it stands for. If you’ll recall, when Trump announced the American attack on Iran, he implied that our intervention would lead to regime change and freedom for the oppressed Iranian people: He said to those people: “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.” Since then he’s been canny about regime change, never explicitly saying that it’s one of the goals of the war.
Nevertheless, Trump’s repeated assertions that there has already been regime change implies further that this was a goal. But his statement is mendacious, for he simply means that by assassinating the Ayatollah and his son, there’s new leadership in Iran. That’s true, but the new leader of Iran is a hard-liner who clearly wants to carry on with the theocracy.
Perhaps because I read Masih Alinejad’s X feed every day, and have been doing so for years, I am desperate to see her aspirations met: democracy in Iran and an end to religious control of the government and violent oppression of dissidents and protestors.
Now, however, Trump is not only canny about that goal, but seems to have repudiated it. If he bombs all of Iran’s infrastructure, as he’s threatened to do, that is an attack on the people of Iran. It also won’t endear us to the people, most of whom previously wanted U.S. intervention to promote freedom. The lates report from the WSJ says this:
Here’s an excerpt bit from the WSJ, followed by Trump’s proclamation on Truth Social:
President Trump escalated his aggressive rhetoric toward Iran, threatening to wipe out the entirety of the country’s civilization if Tehran doesn’t cede to his demands by 8 p.m. Tuesday. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Note his bogus claim that “we have Complete and total Regime Change”, with “less radicalized” people in charge. That’s a baldfaced lie.
More from the WSJ:
Trump’s message marks an escalation of his aggressive rhetoric toward Tehran. He has threatened to strike all of Tehran’s power plants and bridges. Under international law, the military is allowed to strike civilian power plants and other key infrastructure only if it contributes to a military operation and civilian harm is minimized.
Under international law, the military is allowed to strike civilian power plants and other key infrastructure only if it contributes to a military operation and civilian harm is minimized.
This could of course simply be posturing: Trump’s unused strategy of blustering and making threats he has no intention to carry out—a way to force Iran to sign on to a ceasefire. We don’t know. But if the “extortion, corruption, and death” will finally end, so will the hopes of the Iranian people and those of us who want to see them living free.
We’ll see what happens this evening.
My prediction (based on no evidence) is that JD Vance was hoping to make it through the midterms and then have Trump removed. This way Vance would finish out the term, it wouldn’t count towards his two terms, and the GOP wipeout that everyone predicts Trump would be blamed for would cushion any backlash. Perhaps it would even be seen as courageous .Everyone on Earth can see Trump’s brain melting away and the irony of having complained about Biden’s cognitive abilities while simultaneously ignoring (or enabling) Trump’s own dementia would be lost of no one.
Of course, that timeline might have to be fast-forwarded now.
Wow. That’s quite the prediction!
Donald Trump is not demented. That’s not how demented people act or talk. He might have something else wrong with him — I confess to being curious about it — but assuming that he is speaking the way he is out of dementia will lead to an incorrect prediction of what he will do. If you want to say he is “demented” in the same way that school-children insult one another by calling them “retarded”, or that some insult trans activists by calling them “groomers”, OK, fine. I’ll leave you to it.
Do be wary of medicalizing behaviour you don’t like by insulting people you don’t like with medical terms that don’t mean what you think they mean.
(I have no idea what was wrong with Joe Biden’s faculties, either.)
I agree. Trump is not demented in the sense of Alzheimer’s disease. His behavior really hasn’t changed qualitatively since he entered politics. He’s acted like a person with antisocial/narcissistic personality disorder for decades. One possible reason for the seeming escalation in unhinged ranting is that he is experiencing less external controls on his behavior. Indeed, his consiglieres could even be egging him on. Now, if in the future it turns out that he suffered from some illness that affected his brain, I would not be surprised. The simplest explanation, however, is that this is his lifelong pathological behavior sans guardrails.
Even if Trump is posturing, his eruptions are reckless. His lack of impulse control is a big problem, and one can only hope that adult conversations are taking place behind the scenes. Even so, the world has little choice but to take his words seriously. I wish someone would take away his social media privileges. Unfortunately, he owns the company.
Well, tonight IS TACO Tuesday! I guess we’ll find out which chicken will blink? More than likely it will be the tiny handed dictator, DON (OLD) who will back down by making up some ridiculous story regarding Iran and give then another 10 or whatever more days!
Sounds a lot like the antique threats of razing the ancient capital and salting the earth. My guess is that he is talking himself into a thing that he knows might be the biggest throw of the dice in his life.
Like Kober, I hear the echos of the past in his threats. However my thought was Genghis Khan, who had no hesitation to carry out death and destruction at enormous scale. These threats from trump are so outrageous, I wonder if any sane people behind the scenes have some control. I read our VP is in Hungary stumping for Orbán. This situation is madness.
I recommend reading Timothy Snyder’s article this morning, linked (I hope successfully below). I have sent it to my senators and congressional representative and urged them to speak up. I also sent it to all of my friend and relative groups. I urged all to read it ASAP and to send it to their Representatives. I urge all readers to do so as well.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-president-speaks-genocide?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=310897&post_id=193484450&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=ks2c2&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email