Guest Post by Kurt Schlichter
Assuming nothing happens between the time I write this and the time you read it, it appears that Donald Trump has refused to take the sucker’s bait and engage us in open war with Iran. And while I remain more hawkish than many of my fellow supporters of the Trump Revolt against the garbage liberal elite, it’s pretty clear that Trump was right. Some quality conservatives disagree with me in good faith, but whatever makes Fredocons like Bill Kristol upset is presumptively a good idea.
Let’s clarify some things. Iran is our enemy – the notion that we might wish to avoid being drawn into open conflict today does not mean these mullah bastards don’t deserve to be hanged from the very cranes they use to murder gays, women who refuse hijab oppression and people who like freedom. We have been at covert war with them for four decades, and they’ve murdered our people from Lebanon to Iraq and elsewhere.
We are morally justified in wiping out Iran’s scummy leadership and using as much force as we choose to prevent their obtaining the bomb that Obama and his coterie of collaborators tried to hand it. Don’t confuse the fact that it is not to our advantage to openly attack Iran (or at least its rulers) right this minute with the mistaken idea that Iran is not our enemy. We have every moral right to inflict ruthless payback.
Let’s clarify another thing. Iran and our liberal elite both seemed eager for open war. Since when did either want what was best for Trump, which means what is best for America? Napoleon allegedly said, and I’m paraphrasing, “Don’t do what your enemy wants you to do.” Sun Tzu advised readers to irritate a temperamental enemy into mistakes. This is what they were doing. The Iranians hit those tankers, and their denials were baloney. The Iranians shot down our unmanned drone, and their claim it was in their territory was baloney too. Why would they do that? Drones and recon aircraft had flown that path for decades. Why now?
They wanted to be attacked.
There’s no other reasonable explanation. And these attacks were the perfect provocation because they were not that provocative. No Americans were killed, and we know the Iranians have no qualms about murdering Americans – they were responsible for hundreds of American deaths in Iraq. An attack may have cost them a couple radar sites and missile batteries, but so what? With the sanctions strangling their economy, and the Persian people restless from four decades chafing under these fanatics’ rule, this would be a great way to unify the country against an outside attacker and seize the moral high ground while splitting the US off from its allies and undercutting Trump’s rule.
And our elite also wanted Trump to attack. Why?
Some are legit patriots who recognize Iran is a threat and want it erased – with them, this is a reasonable disagreement on strategy and tactics. Save your criticisms of Mike Pompeo and John Bolton for someone else – I’m glad they’re in place even if I may not agree with their strategic assessment of this situation. They are doing what they think is good for America, and we can work with that.
But others are more cynical, and less patriotic. They recognize that another war – over a robot plane – would undercut Trump’s own legitimacy with his base, maybe fatally. Trump was hired in significant part because Normal Americans were sick and tired of having their kids sent off to fight wars that our garbage elite has no intention of winning – and we had no intention of winning one with Iran. That means invading and occupying – no dice. This would be more inconclusive Mideast skirmishing. The Democrats would have loudly and proudly opposed this new war and, if they had their way, it would have defined Trump’s presidency like Vietnam did LBJ’s, or Iraq did Bush 43’s.
“Hey, wait,” one might ask. “Weren’t we just talking about one airstrike and that’s it?” Well, the advocates in DC were, but Iran might have had other ideas. After all, the enemy gets a vote, and it could have voted to massacre Americans still in Iraq or elsewhere. Once you jump into war, you lose the ability to jump out when things get ugly.
Let’s talk conspiracy theories. Is it possible that the John Kerry/Ben Rhodes Iranophile faction, still stinging because Trump binned their disastrous Iran Deal and exercising their liberal free pass on the Logan Act, told the mullahs to provoke Trump with some non-fatal pokes in order to weaken him domestically and help restore the rule of people who always put American interests last?
That is, Democrats.
I don’t know, but can we really rule that out? We keep hearing from these people about how Trump is an existential threat to America, and if they really believe that, is it so nuts to think they might canoodle with Tehran to defeat him? If you had told me a few years ago the entire senior DoJ and FBI would conspire to pull off a soft coup to undo an election, I might have advised you to take a deep breath and chill. But then I watched it happen.
So, I don’t know if it this is what went down, but no one can say you’re insane for thinking it could. And that possibility had to enter into Trump’s calculations.
Couldn’t you just feel the disappointment out there in the garbage mainstream media when Trump saw the ambush and decided, at the last minute, not to walk into the kill zone? They spent all day nailing together their cross and he decided to skip the crucifixion.
And what if the Iranians were ready and waiting for us and shot down a bunch of our planes? Can you imagine the hit Trump would have taken? Even if no one tipped them off that we were coming – it’s horrible to even write that, but can we be absolutely confident no one might think the sacrifice worthwhile if it dealt a defeat to The Donald? – there is nothing publicly disclosed about the plan Trump scrubbed that could not be guessed by a half-way competent major.
But leaving aside the politics, which adults understand you cannot do, was this a bad purely strategic decision?
At the Army War College, before it disgraced itself by cowering before SJWs and when we weren’t reading Clausewitz, we learned about the elements of national power: DIME – diplomatic, information, military and economic. There are lots of tools in the toolbox. The Iranians publicly shot down a US drone, which was a military action but was arguably more of an information (i.e., propaganda) operation. Why do we have to reply in kind? No practical military option exists to defeat the mullahs, since we’re not marching into Tehran unless Max Boot and Bill Kristol start getting their phone calls returned by the White House again. So, an attack would have been a one-time punch to show our resolve with no lasting effect on their strategic capabilities. In other words, an information operation, and not much of one since no one actually thinks Trump won’t unleash hell if the baddies do something really bad.
Wait…Trump’s Acting DHS Director Leaked Information On Planned ICE Raids To Sabotage Them?
If you want to hurt the mullahs – and I do – you use the tools that they can’t match even as you mercilessly disembowel them. Diplomatic: Let’s help the Iranian resistance, as opposed to the Obama policy of propping up the Imam-ocracy. Let’s make them chase their own tail trying to snuff out internal opposition so they can’t cause mischief around the region and the globe.
Economic: Impose more sanctions. If the choice is doing biz with the US or Iran, Iran loses every single time. And we should leverage this crisis to our own advantage to help America prosper. The Far East (China, Japan and South Korea) gets most of its oil from the Persian Gulf. Hey, didn’t Trump just make the US a net exporter of petroleum products by undoing the Obama oil exploration self-castration rules? Asia can buy from us instead, or they can go defend their own sea lanes. Choose.
Good choice. Welcome to Texas.
We win, Iran loses. We prosper, Iran sinks into economic chaos, and eventually its people get sick of misery and those murderous Khomeinist creeps swing.
War is what the mullahs wanted because they know they can’t lose strategically in a military context – only Trump can. But they can only lose strategically to our diplomatic and economic power – if we choose to ruthlessly employ it.
Oh, the military option is still there. And the patience to await the right time to use it instead of reacting precipitously is a combat multiplier. We need to set the timetable, not our opponents.
It’s clear that Iran and certain domestic political actors – the Democrats – share a common interest in seeing Trump defeated politically. Their interests were therefore aligned in favor of the strike Trump called off. Why again would we do what our opponents want?
The nice thing about Trump is that he has no intention of being played for a sap.
If Trump gets talked into yet another unnecessary war – the “unnecessary” qualifier is important because a justifiable war won’t hurt him – then it’s pretty clear he loses in 2020 and we would then start down the slope toward the nightmare I write about in my action-packed yet super-snarky novels about the United States’ split into red and blue countries, People’s Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire. Not surprisingly, liberals and the sad Loser Boat crew from the failed Weekly Standard hailed my novels as “Appalling.” So, declare war on those goofs and check out my books.
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“There’s no other reasonable explanation”
Well, of course there are several other reasonable explanations.
I read this asshole every other month or so to see if I can finally understand him being a regular contributor to this site. Today I was able to trudge through about 4 paragraphs. Iran is certainly not a fucking enemy of the American people. And if they are to the federal government then join the ever increasing club. That they have a fucked up government is not something we can criticize considering ours. That they kill people while fighting back against the Axis of Evil 2.0 -israel, s arabia and the u.s is no outrage. They’re defending themselves.
My two cents worth is that he is dumped for someone with valuable insights like Glenn Greenwald or Tom Woods.
I wouldn’t replace him, Kurt is a useful guide to what the neocon nuts and Nikki Haley lovers actually think…..
CC, you are completely dead on. The more the MIGA dickheads downvote you, the more you know you’re right.
I revel in them. Who wants to be respected by an asshole?
CCRider, you are an ignorant doofus. You, too, pyrrhus. Kurt is no Neo-Con. You don’t even know what the term means. Kurt makes it clear he wants no war with Iran. Neither do I. Unfortunately, the Iranian mullahs (not the people) have ridiculous dreams of grandeur and think they count for something in the world. They need to be educated. Your error, caused by your own deficient education and lack of real world experience, is in thinking that just because somebody hates America, they are good people. Iran is a permanent threat to peace in the Middle East. I opposed the Iraq War, I oppose our butt-kissing of Israel, and I opposed Syria, the Arab Spring nonsense, Libya, etc. But Iran’s current leaders are in need of a good butt-kicking, military or otherwise. Should have been done by Reagan. I am sick of the people who write to TBP and constantly shit on our country. God knows there is enough wrong that needs to be fixed (and we may well need a civil war to do it) but it is one thing to justly criticize the United States and its flaws and quite another to take the part of our enemies. Since you think so much of them, why don’t you two just go give Obama and Kerry b.j.’s on the street corner and regain some of your dignity.
What a pile of fresh stinking bullshit. Nowhere did I call him a neocon. I called him an asshole, asshole. They need to be educated? Right, by slaughtering their people especially the women and babies. Let me guess-you love Jesus don’t you? A true sign of a delusional mass murderer. Oh but wait, you and your asshole buddy don’t want a war-like trump gives a shit about your opinion. What matters are all those bases surrounding them and the fleet of warships just off their coast threatening them. And they have visions of grandeur? Are you fucking kidding? Coming from the country that is telling China what they can do in the South China Sea? IRAN is a threat to peace? Jesus Christ how ridiculous. I don’t ‘shit on our country’. I shit on ‘our’ government and lackies like you who sustain them. I always knew you were a warmonger masquerading as a real human but this is a new low.
About the blow jobs? Go fuck your mother and give the neighborhood dogs a breather.
So the gist of this is good for Trump on avoiding war for now but war for later is still on the table. Great thinking . How about no war period, that would be a nice change of pace. How about demilitarization, a draw down in bases, about letting Israel et al fight their own wars? And economic sanctions are war, killing people covertly is the same thing, ripping zionists like Kristol and Boot, you’re no different.
In some way sanctions are more immoral than military strikes in that the poorest and youngest suffer the most. David Icke must be right: they’re fucking reptiles.
With thinking like yours America would never have existed.
Oh really, seems like Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin and others thought exactly the same thing. Even though Google is not your friend they do supply plenty of information on these topics you might start with Washingtons farewell address for beginners.
There have been righteous wars in the past, therefore all wars are righteous? Brilliant.
In any case war should be the last choice made. Does that sounded like the us gooberment of late (say the last 7 decades)?
what? All the founding fathers were non-interventionists..
Right. Now contest my points if you can cobble together the required brain cells.
There’s no fool like an old fool.
One point you made is dead wrong. That is that Iran is not the enemy of the American people. Mohammedans are enemies of any and all civilized people.
thejerkstore has it spot-on. What the fuck are the Persians doing in the Persian gulf anyway? sarc/ If we’re going to worry about Muslims having nukes should we invade Pakistan? If 9/11 was done by the muzzles, it was by Sunnis. For damn sure it wasn’t a Shiite effort. Americans killed by Iran in Iraq is a damned shame, but not a surprise. Invade a predominantly Shia country that’s adjacent to the biggest, most prominent and powerful Shia country and they’re likely to take an interest in it. Schlichter calls it murder. That’s fine, but it’s no more murder than bombing wedding parties. We’re wasting our borrowed treasure patrolling the Persian Gulf to ensure the free passage of oil to China. Let the Israelis defend themselves. Those army recruiting posters should be changed from “Uncle Sam Needs You!” to “Uncle Schlomo Needs You!” The “Normies” Schlichter lauds need to warn their kids that signing up for the US military is to put themselves at the disposal of the likes of John Bolton, John McCain and Robert Kagan.
It’s Schlichter, nuff’ said.
“We have been at covert war with them for four decades, and they’ve murdered our people from Lebanon to Iraq and elsewhere.”
By “we” I take it that Kurt means Israel, whose expansionist Zionist dreams have been sorely hampered by Iranian backed militias….
I agree with keeping the war dogs chained and yanking the leash to keep them in line. A drone shot down isn’t in the same category as an overt attack that kills our people. MIC can replace drones.
Maybe Trump has learned a few things since the Syrian missile attacks. A conflict with Iran could draw in Russia and China, or give the Progs and their thralls a political pretext for war crimes accusations against Trump.
So let the raghead Hadjis and their quisling Prog sympathizers at home swing in the breeze for a while. It’s fun to watch – for now. At some point the Trump Speed Bump won’t prevent the real crazy when it’s ready to happen.
Iran is not an imperial nation and has, by most accounts, never attacked anyone. Ever. So there’ s a big strike against them as far as planting mines and smashing a robot out of the sky to incite retaliation. Besides which, since they have no real idea what the reaction might be (or how disproportional), it would be foolish, reckless, downright stoopid, to literally poke – poke – “the great satan” that is the US war machine. We might literally have reduced Tehran to a garden of ruins before anybody else had time to react. [I understand that they have s-400 antimissile systems, and they are bad-ass, but they do not have infinite reloads. For all intents and purposes, thanks to our Saudi bases, Iraqi bases, Israeli bases (and their bases), Libyan bases, and Afghani bases . . . we do.]
Iran also has a religious government; they are not secular like Syria or Libya, neither of which were particularly zealous for the destruction of everybody else. Iran . . . not so much. Maybe. They are predominantly Shia Muslim . . . which means they believe/teach/accept/celebrate that they get brownie points for killing infidels. That’s us. So, IF they wanted the US to attack, the have no reason not to sink a battleship.
So . . . no. Not buying your logic.
“We have every moral right to inflict ruthless payback.”
For what exactly?
Death to America! Death to America!
Yeah, the people of Iran are not the bad guys and they only want peaceful lives, but they are not the ones who push the war buttons, but the mullah’s do; And the people of Iran had just witnessed the evil Americans not unleashing hell as the mullahs had promised. That should put a cramp in the mullahs ratcheting up the war drums they hope will rally their people to war.
Kurt is spot on, simply put. The same people who see Iran as not our enemy, would be the same ones who would not have come against Hitler, because all the German people are only wanting a peaceful existence; don’t give into the idea that Germany is amassing a huge army bent on conquest, it’s the common people that count.
Yeah, America is in the pockets of the Israeli cabal, who want us at war with Iran, until we are standing down from the military response and suddenly (sputter sputter) but but but, they still do Israel’s bidding.
Life isn’t as simple as Israel bad everyone else good. Yes, the Jewish people do have the financial market cornered (just like the Bible promise them) and yes, that money has placed them at the top of the global food chain, but spending ones life looking at the world through “I hate Jews” colored glasses is as pathetic as the Bolton types who look at the world through “every war is a good war” colored glasses; both will always get it wrong in the end.
Come on, the only reason Trump called off the bombing is because Israel told him to after they got credible evidence that Iran would retaliate against them.
And Hezbollah and Hamas, and Syria and ISIS and…….
Yeah, America is in the pockets of the Israeli cabal, who want us at war with Iran, until we are standing down from the military response and suddenly (sputter sputter) but but but, they still do Israel’s bidding.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Israel behind the US hitting Iran in the interests of Israel, until the secret communications you are privy to stopped them?
FWIW, sending a full blown military response and ordering it to be stopped at the last minute was a truly brilliant move; it sent the message to the mullahs not to push us, a message to the Iranian people we are not bloody thirsty (yet) and averted a war that we did not need.
Bottom line, we are not watching the escalations of a war today, but bidding our time for a move when we decide the timing is in our interests.
CNN disagrees with me, so I know I’m right!
Excellent analysis. There is no doubt that there was a sinister hand behind trying to sucker Trump into an attack on Iran. Kerry-Cohen? Sure, he has always been a traitor. The Israelis, for all of their hoop-la over Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, hate Trump and know that, in the end, he is a mortal threat to their plans – they know an Iran disaster would sink his second term. The Iranians are the most devious people on earth. As Kurt correctly points out, the mullahs in Tehran are the enemy. They are behind the murders of hundreds of Americans, including the torture death of CIA Station Chief in Beirut William Buckley (for the pigs out there who want to say, well, the CIA tortures people, I have an answer. We can do what we want – the primitive scum of the world just have to take it – that is the way of the world. We are not subject to the same rules as them, and if they don’t like it, we can vaporize them.) We can beat them but to do so we have to avoid playing their game. They are merciless, murdering primitives who have to be dealt with using our entire toolbox. We should be encouraging every kind of internal opposition, shut them off the Inrernet, flood the Iranian people with news and information, put an unbearable squeeze on them economically. If they dare to strike us first – a real hit, with dead Americans – we hammer them until they squeal. Knock out their electric power, drone strikes on the homes of their senior officials, destroy their navy and air force, ban civil air service to the country, and, if they try to retaliate, really take off the gloves. I am in principle a non-interventionist and I hold no brief for Israel or the Sunni enemies of Iran. That said, the Iranians have had a pasting coming since they kidnapped our diplomats in 1979. We need to teach them a lesson they will never forget. We rule in this corner of the universe and woe to those who refuse to accept that. Again, I prefer that we mind our own business as much as possible, but when the natives get uppity, a good flogging is the only thing they understand. There are many good, modern-thinking Iranians who want this gang of flea-bitten Allah shills in hell. Let’s let them take back their country, put the primitives in their place, and do it without causing a world war.
I despise Muslims, and have wanted a crack at the Iranians since 1979. (One of the main reasons for enlisting, actually.) But…these are the same people that have been around for thousands of years as a homogeneous nation, and frequently fought the Romans to a standstill, or flat out kicked their assess from time to time. I don’t want to engage in hostile combat against that country until they actually commit an unprovoked Act of War, and then we had better not try it on the cheap. All, or nothing at all.