Donald Trump spoke to reporters in Los Angeles on Wednesday alongside new national security advisor Robert O’Brien.
Predictably, the president said something that was all at once unnerving and hilarious, depending on how inclined you are to be concerned that America is on the brink of stumbling into a war with Iran.
A bit of context is in order. On Tuesday, staunch Trump supporter (some would just call him a sycophant) Lindsey Graham suggested Iran viewed the president’s last minute decision to call off strikes on Iranian missile batteries in June as a “sign of weakness”.
As you can imagine, that didn’t go over particularly well. “No Lindsey, it was a sign of strength that some people just don’t understand!”, Trump exclaimed, in a tweet of his own.
The exchange (and the two have doubtlessly spoken about this since) underscored the tenuous situation Trump finds himself in headed into an election year. The “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran hasn’t yielded the desired results, but this is a president who ran, in part, on a promise to extricate the country from costly foreign wars.
Now, with both Mike Pompeo and the Saudis insisting that Iran was directly responsible for the brazen attacks on the kingdom’s oil infrastructure, Trump is attempting to navigate choppy waters.
“No, I actually think it’s a sign of strength”, Trump insisted, on Wednesday, again addressing Graham’s tweet. “We have the strongest military in the world – NOW”, he added, emphasizing “now” in an effort to perpetuate the notion that the Obama administration gutted the armed forces.
“It’s very easy to attack, but if you ask Lindsey, ‘How did it go going into the Middle East? How did that work out?’ and ‘How did going into Iraq work out?'”, Trump continued, adding that he and Graham “have a disagreement on that”.
So far so good, where “good” just means that Trump isn’t anxious to rush into a foreign conflict.
But then, Trump said this:
And you know, there’s plenty of time to do some dastardly things. It’s very easy to start. And we’ll see what happens.
Robert O’Brien looked like he was regretting it already.
Trump also said an announcement on the Saudi attacks would be coming soon, and indicated new sanctions on Iran (which he announced on Twitter) would be “coming in 48 hours”.
Asked to “say a few words”, a nervous-looking O’Brien came up with the following:
He should last at least a couple of weeks.
What’s the best guess on what response Saudi/US will unveil? Assuming both are trying to find a tough-looking response that doesn’t lead to hundreds of Iranian missiles coming in from the north (or Northwest, or West, or Northeast, or whatever the way to Iran is – this seems remarkably hard to pin down).
Economic sanctions, cyberstrikes, stern lectures, noisily beefing up Saudi defenses. Hard to spin this as strength through doing nothing, but Trump could say the Saudis told him to stand down this time but you just wait until next time.
Bomb some Houti fighters, or anyway some people who are generally in the area where Houti fighters might be or have been? That would be easy, the Saudis could do it, wouldn’t trigger any immediate Iranian response, beyond smirking.
Strike some Iranian radars and missile batteries, kind of like dusting off the strike that Trump called off a few months ago. Also fairly easy, the Saudis would probably beg off and let the US do it, might trigger some Iranian response but probably not a full-blown war.
Stepped up naval action in the strait, like seizing ships sailing from Iran. Not that easy, would put US ships in harms’ way, eventually we’d get to find out just how dangerous it is for ships to operate in narrow waters lined with anti-ship missile threats. But a naval action sounds impressive, lots of photo-op potential, and it can be quietly ramped down after a few weeks.
The way these things work…….. there are backroom channels at work with both Russia and China both having likely issued mutual threats/warnings.
Until you get an agreed on scenario do not forget the Iranians can go rogue and delete any of that anytime . Israel for that matter can create a diversionary conflict….in the Golan or Syria… Lots of Players here and lots of motivations making a lack of a coordinated response a potential disaster with great potential for a spillover.
Kind of ironic that Trump has been whinging about the Deep State for two and a half years and now that it truly is mobliilizing against him, he has nothing to say about it.
H-Man, you should be on SNL. “He will last a couple of weeks”. This guy is milk toast who slobbers at the feet of POTUS. It may only take a couple of days.
All wars are good and easy to win.
What is O’Brian’s background?? Is he intelligence, military, State Department?? Does he have a working relationship with military and intelligence?? Is he qualified to be the National Security Advisor to the military and intelligence agencies?? Or is he just another Trump ‘Yes’ man??
Why is Trump and Pompeo determined to make this about America? Oh, I forgot… it’s about Trump and Pompeo.