Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew of Great Britain, brother of King Charles III, was arrested this morning, for EPSTEIN FILES related offenses. There is a lot to say about that, coming soon to “Our America”.
Bomb-Bomb Iran
During the 2007 Republican Presidential primaries, there was an awkward moment for the eventual winner, Arizona Senator John McCain. At a retirement community in South Carolina, McCain was asked what he would do if faced with a “nuclear Iran”. He responded with a version of the Beach Boys song, Barbara Ann: “Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb Iran. Bomb Iran…”
That was almost two decades ago. At the time, McCain was chastised for making light of an incredibly serious subject. His campaign explained that the Senator was joking, but immediately came back with a serious proposal to deal with the crisis. McCain ultimately won the early season state, reversing his 2000 election loss there to George W Bush.
President Trump has already “sung” that tune. He claims to have “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. The United States dropped some of the biggest weapons in the arsenal last June on Iran (Nuts and Bolts of Bombing Iran). But the “obliteration” must not have been quite so “complete and total”. Today the United States stand on the precipice of further military action, because of the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons.
Carrier Groups
Currently, the United States has one carrier group in the region, the USS Abraham Lincoln, with a second group, the USS Gerald Ford, on the way (I guess Trump’s done with Venezuela). That’s more than twenty ships, and over 15,000 sailors and Marines near Iran. In addition there are multiple US bases in the region, with close to 50,000 US troops stationed in the Middle East. The Trump Administration is using the “full weight” of US military power to pressure Iran.
What does President Trump want? Well there’s been an internal struggle in Iran, with the well-educated middle class protesting against the stringent rules of Iran’s Shi’ite theocracy. Thousands of protesters have been killed, with estimates ranging wildly from as few as three thousand, to as many as thirty-six thousand. Many more civilians are imprisoned. Trump encouraged the protestors, saying that the United States was willing to help.
But that’s not what the US show of force is all about.
Repudiated
Trump is trying to force Iran to negotiate away their ability to build nuclear weapons. In order to get them “to the table”, he’s recognized the legitimacy of the Ayatollah’s religious rule, much to the dismay of the protest movement. Trump wants to stop nuclear development, and a removal of the machinery needed to create nuclear weapons.
If all of that sounds vaguely familiar, it should. While John McCain was singing about “bombing Iran”, the eventual winner of that Presidential contest in 2008 was Barack Obama. And the Obama Administration used a lot of their foreign policy assets to get Iran to make a deal over nuclear weapons. It was called the JCPOA, and involved five nations; China, Russia, France, Germany the United Kingdom; as well as Iran and the US. It was a ten-year plan to restrict Iran’s nuclear development. And like any arms limitation plan, it included serious verification actions to make sure that Iran was following through.
The JCPOA was one of the first Obama acts that Trump repudiated on taking office in 2017.
Zero-Sum
So here we are, trying to “start negotiating” with Iran, and backing it up with the full might of the US military. The goal: basically get the JPCOA, again, without the help from Russia or China. Trump detects weakness in Iran, both internally with the protests, and externally with Iran failing to take any responsive action to the US and Israeli attacks. So he’s “doubling down” with military pressure to force another agreement.
The concern Americans should have is that the religious leaders of Iran aren’t necessarily working from the same playbook, the same “zero-sum game” as the Trump Administration. That might be willing to take attacks from the US. Or they might even use their existing nuclear weapons, in order to further their religious goals. Americans should worry that Trump and his inexperienced foreign policy team (businessmen Kushner and Witkoff) might misjudge the religious fervor of the Ayatollahs. America might launch an ugly and unneeded war in the Middle East.
All to get, what we already got — and gave away.
