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A few days ago former Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James, warned that a new service branch would worsen problems plaguing the U.S. military's space efforts. She shared that the Pentagon's top brass is also hesitant to form a new military branch saying "none of them are in favor of a space force but they are stuck." CNBC July 30, 2018
This isn’t funny. It is an example of how Trump lives in a Buck Rogers fantasy world.
Transgender troops? Someone floats the idea and Trump says they have to go, in a Tweet. His generals manage to nix the idea, at least temporarily.
We all know that Trump thinks insulting Kim Jung Un and all caps Tweets to President Hassan Rouhani, insulting Canadian, NATO and EU leaders, cozying up to Vladimir Putin are the ways to conduct diplomacy. Why? Because he’s got the biggest brain, the best words, he’s the smartest man on the planet.
Now more than ever we wonder whether the pressure of the Mueller investigation closing in on him could lead Trump to start a war.
There are only two countries on Trump’s enemies list.
North Korea has nukes and any military action against them would result in massive retaliation against South Korea and the deaths of many Americans. A few million dead Asians, not so bad. Dead Americans, bad PR. Trump wouldn’t do it.
Iran, on the other hand, doesn’t have nuclear weapons and thousands of artillery aimed across a DMZ. It's his other option.
It may be cynical to suggest that a primary reason attacking Iran would be that it ’s attractive to Trump because it would play well to his base since Iran is 90-95% Muslim. We know how Trump feels about Muslims or pretends to feel about them. President Hassan Rouhani doesn’t have pasty white skin and he wears a turban. He is definitely the kind of “other” Trump likes to demonize.
We all have heard of the “Wag the Dog Scenario.” Here’s a refresher as to where the reference comes from:
Wag the Dog is a 1997 black comedy film[1] where a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer fabricate a war to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. It was produced and directed by Barry Levinson, and starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. The screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet was loosely adapted from Larry Beinhart's novel American Hero.
Wag the Dog was released one month before the outbreak of the Lewinsky scandal and the subsequent bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan by the Clinton administration, which prompted the media to draw comparisons between the film and reality.[3] WIKIPEDIA
There’s the irony that the plot involved a sex scandal before Monica Lewinski became a household name, and then there's Trump and he’s had a few of his own sex scandals. One got Clinton impeached by the House, and the other got Trump a big ho-hum.
The movie depicted a fake war but Trump couldn't get away with that.
Trump would need a real war, a telegenic fire and fury war, a shock and awe war.
I hope before he decides to do this he looks at a map.
Iran’s armed forces, the Revolutionary Guard has a Navy so the war would be fought on the land, in the air, and in the strategically vital Gulf of Oman. The Iranian Air Force as of June 2016 possessed 348 fighters, making it the ninth most powerful air arm in the world. In addition to surface vessels, the Iranian Navy has Iran has 3 Russian-built Kilo-class submarines patrolling the Persian Gulf.
Moreover, Iran is big.
Trump, who may be geography challenged may not know how big it is.
Compared to its neighbors Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, it is really big.
Really, really big.
……….
Additional reading: Trump Has Made Iran Public Enemy No.1. How Far Will He Go? Time Magazine
Finally, on July 22, Rouhani spoke out in rare bellicose terms more often heard from Iran’s Supreme Leader. “Mr. Trump, do not play with the lion’s tail, this will only lead to regret,” Rouhani said, according to the state-run news agency IRNA. “America must understand that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.” That triggered Trump’s all-caps tweet the same day: “Never, ever threaten the united states again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before.”
Trump’s tweet also had a domestic context–it changed the subject from fallout from his Russia summit. But critics say the President’s entire approach to Iran runs a steep risk. “There’s so much friction between Iran, the U.S. and their respective allies throughout the region,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. “There’s so many flash points that a single miscalculation could result in a confrontation that could easily spiral out of control.” A wider war with Iran might stoke bloody sectarian violence across a region already reeling through nearly three decades of nonstop conflict. Some experts also fear a smaller, targeted threat against U.S. interests, perhaps an Iranian-backed militia attack against isolated U.S. forces, on a remote base in Syria.