On January 3, the Trump administration set off a series of events beginning with the assassination of Iran’s top military commander, Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani was the Major General in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He was highly revered, and feared, throughout Iran and a powerful figure across Iran’s sphere of influence in the Middle East.
Initial reactions were predictable. Trump supporters and NeoCons cheered his death. Liberals noted the General’s atrocities, but complained about yet another abuse of power from the Trump White House. From the few MAGA’s I connect with online to the echo chamber of Faux News, Trump was praised for being decisive and the world was deemed better without Soleimani in it.
Weekly outrages (sometimes daily) from this White House have become the norm. Trump supporters reflexively defend Trump adamantly in the face of every outrage, while his detractors (rightly) call out his offenses. Rinse and repeat. It’s the defining characteristic of this administration.
But this time, there was something different. There was fear. Not just from the left, who have long feared the moment Trump would do something of grave significance like this. Trump supporters knew it too.
As usual, Trump turned to twitter and made matters worse. In the vacuum of information from the administration to support the extreme escalation, Trump increased the rhetoric with threats to commit war crimes.
The world braced for the response from Iran, which everyone knew was inevitable.
There was a brief period of time here- perhaps 24 or 48 hours- where I got a palpable sense of something I hadn’t seen before. I can’t even point to a specific Fox segment or conservative tweet to support this, but I sensed something significant: they knew. They knew that by exiting the JCPOA, Trump set us on a path where conflict was inevitable. They knew that the assassination of Soleimani was not the same as killing a terrorist leader plotting an attack on the US. They knew Trump was incapable of containing the consequences of what he set in motion. They knew Trump’s incompetence had put American lives at risk, and that a major avoidable conflict was a likely scenario. They knew that this distracted attention from Trump’s impeachment. They knew the assassination was reckless and dangerous, and that Trump wasn’t able to lead us through the fallout.
There was a world-wide sigh of relief- including Trump supporters- when Iran reacted with a measured response. Think of that for a moment: the narrative was that while Iran had to respond militarily, the Iranian regime isn’t suicidal. Nobody said this of Trump. The world looked to Iran to keep the situation from escalating out of control. We’ve learned that even the Trump white house sent messages to Iran, beseeching them not to over react. Everyone knows that Trump was incapable of managing the situation if it got worse.
So much could have gone wrong- in fact it did go wrong when Iran shot down a commercial airliner, killing 176 people. But if one of the Iranian missiles had landed on American troops, we would be in a different situation today. We got lucky, due in no small part to the restraint of Iran’s leadership.
For a brief period of fear and uncertainty you could tell: Trump supporters knew that Trump lacked the knowledge, temperament and leadership to manage this crisis of his own making. Sure- they’re not going to admit it. Things are mostly back to “normal” now. The next outrage is already yesterday’s news. Trump supporters and Faux news have returned to unabashed sycophancy.
But they knew.