Sunday, June 22, 2025

TO YOUR RIGHT-WING NEIGHBORS, THIS WILL BE TRUMP'S WAR ONLY IF IT WORKS

Vox's Joshua Keating says that President Trump can't evade responsibility for what happens now that American forces have bombed Iraninan nuclear facilities.
President Donald Trump claimed during his 2024 campaign for president that America had fought “no wars” during his first presidency, and that he was the first president in 72 years who could say that.

This was not, strictly speaking, true. In his first term, Trump intensified the air war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, ordered airstrikes against Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime in response to chemical weapons use, and escalated a little-noticed counterinsurgency campaign in Somalia. But in those cases, Trump could say, with some justification, that he was just dealing with festering crises he had inherited from Barack Obama.

Likewise, the president has repeatedly claimed that the wars in Gaza and Ukraine never would have happened had he been president when they broke out, rather than Joe Biden.... it’s fair to say that both are wars Trump inherited rather than chose.

This time, it’s different. This time, it’s Trump’s war....

It’s quite a gamble – and this time he will have no one else to blame if it doesn’t go as planned.
Oh, he'll find someone to blame -- the two people you'd expect him to blame. And every Republican in America will agree with him.

At this moment, most Republicans are backing Trump. A handful of Republicans -- Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance -- are opposed to this intervention.


But ask any Republican, especially rank-and-file Republicans, about Iran, and the first thing you'll hear is that Barack Obama made a horrible deal with Iran and both Obama and Joe Biden were appeasers who tossed money at Iran strictly because Democrats are evil traitors who always want to help America's enemies.


That's been Trump's line for many years.


In a speech in Saudi Arabia last month, Trump said,
The Biden administration's extreme weakness and gross incompetence derailed progress toward peace, destabilized the region and put at risk everything we had worked so hard to build together.
Specifically:
They lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for getting nothing and sent the regime tens of billions of dollars to fund terror and death all over the world. And they laughed at him, they laughed at our leader and they're still laughing at our leader.

They thought him a fool and they made nothing but trouble ever since....
Much of the money that Trump and other Republicans talk about consisted of Iranian assets that were unfrozen with strict conditions imposed. But right-wingers don't care, just as they don't care about the effectiveness of the nuclear deal that Obama negotiated and Trump scrapped in his first term.


They'll blame Obama and Biden (and Jimmy Carter) if Trump's intervention leads to bad consequences. But if there's a good outcome, Trump will get the credit.

*****

UPDATE: And there you go...

Q: “Do you think there is a possibility Iran, North Korea, and the other forces such as China will join forces and retaliate?” HEGSETH: *blames Biden* Truly unbelievable stuff.

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 9:27 AM
Posted by Steve M. at 10:05 AM

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