Toxic Masculinity

Yet it is the Orangeman whom our effete glitterati love to accuse ...

President Hothead ...

... cools it down. Last night Iran launched missiles at Iraqi bases housing American soldiers which killed and injured no one. This seems a calculated charade designed to save face. Iranians are very proud people ... so prideful that they would risk destroying themselves to prove themselves manly.

One could liken this possible ruse to a participant in a duel first shooting into the ground. Once President Trump realized what Iran was doing, however risky, he proclaimed, “All is well.” In other words, you have displayed your masculinity and regained a measure of your pride ... now I will step back and see what you do next. If the ayatollah is satisfied with this charade, Trump unlikely will respond in force. He, known as an unpredictable hothead, seems satisfied with cooling things down. He has unloaded his bazooka and seems to want to see what Iran does next.

Perhaps, this bunch of testosterone-crazed mullahs will now be finally ready to sit down and negotiate a real nuclear treaty ... and stop their reign of terrorism? Wouldn’t that be nice ... and a real win for Trump’s foreign policy.

Afterward: Just read the Diplomad’s take on things. He has an even more interesting spin ... the Iranians actually gave up Soleimani  ... see: The Diplomad.

Iran

America’s biggest mistake in dealing with Iran was not retaliating when it first took over our Tehran embassy back in 1979. This was clearly an act of war ... and we effectively did nothing. It's all been downhill from then ... costing us billions of dollars and thousands of American lives. The Iranian mullahs and Quds Force are guttersnipes and need to be neutered ... with the least damage done to the Iranian people and infrastructure.

That said, the United States needs to respond only to a direct attack by Iran on our people or assets. Getting into a kinetic conflict with Iran over its attacks on Saudi Arabia is Saudi Arabia’s problem and it needs to take care if its own business. And, be not mistaken, Iran is devious and dangerous ... so any retaliation needs to be well thought-through and designed to be proportional.

Acid Test

There is a clear acid test to differentiate the foreign policies of Obama and Trump ... and that is now occurring in Iran. There, demonstrations are getting more deadly every day. What started as economic protests have blossomed into full-throated anti-mullah uprisings. The Iran government is a very repressive anti-American and anti-Israel theocracy ... trying to establish Shiite hegemony throughout the Sunni Middle East. However, Trump-style populism is even creeping into Tehran ... causing distrust of its leadership. The Persian government there is even forced now to augment its police and special forces with Gaza and Hezbollah Arabs.

When the Green Revolution took place after disputed elections in Iran back in 2009, President Obama turned his back on this infant insurrection ... and it died as did many of its supporters. Obama then went on to suck up to Iran's despotic mullahs by negotiating a horrible one-sided nuclear pact that gave Iran back $150  billion in frozen assets and an easy path to atomic weaponry ... as well as some other goodies ... Obama's $1.7 billion cash ransoming of American prisoners, his secret letters to the mullahs, his allowing the humiliation of U.S. sailors and his calling off the drug-enforcement dogs from Iran-backed Hezbollah ... all to placate, for some mysterious reason, a major sponsor of Islamic terrorism.

In opposition to what many consider to be capitulation on Obama's part, Trump is vigorously supporting these recent protests by the Iranian populus ... a populus that generally supports America. Trump has tweeted his enthusiastic endorsement of these mew Iranian insurgents ... saying the 'time has come' for these thuggish mullahs to be overthrown. Hopefully other nations will fall in line behind Trump.

So, the acid test now presents itself ... is Trump right to go with the Iranian populus ... or was Obama's mullah boot-licking the right policy? We should know the answer within Trump's first term in office.

$99,999,999.99

Two days after it paid Iran $400M in cash to release four American hostages, the Obummer administration made 13 wire transfer payments of $99,999,999.99 to the salivating mullahs there ... theoretically paying off the rest of $1.7B that some international agency said we owed Iran ... see: NY Sun Articl e. Now there are at least five things seriously wrong with these transactions. You, dear reader, are now challenged to list these travesties (hint -- one is that we still might owe Iran 13 cents). First reader to get them all right wins a "Black Lives Matter" tee shirt.

Turkey with all the Fixin's

President Obama has been groping his way toward a cogent policy vis-a-vis Syria for over two years now … besmirching himself and the United States in the process.  Once again his tendency to tilt toward Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood has caused most of his headaches.  Rather than rehash some very thoughtful analyses of this foreign-policy mashed potatoes, I suggest that you read this Powerline blog entry and then return for a few thoughts of my own ... see: Powerline Comments.

Unable to recognize the perils surrounding his overt friendship with the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama has continued to bet on this losing horse.  His backing of this radical element of Islam in Egypt was instrumental in Morsi’s winning the Egyptian election … which then resulted in Morsi’s ham-handed attempts to subvert the democratic process there.  As a result we now have a large portion of the more moderate elements in Egypt and around the Middle East distrusting us … as they rightly should. Our President has created major havoc in Syria, Libya, and Egypt … costing many thousands of innocent lives … and missed a golden opportunity to neutralize Iran’s mullahs during its Green Movement … all because of his mule-like embrace of radical Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood.

President Obama’s inability to learn from his many mistakes, both domestic and abroad, is probably his worst character flaw … although I’m sure other thinkers might offer a few more malignant suggestions.  There are even those who feel that his major screw-ups are purposeful.  If that be the case, then neither God nor Allah can save us.