You elect stupid people, you get a stupid war

Trump’s Iran misadventure is driven by obtuse arrogance and profound ignorance

It becomes more apparent by the day that President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth started a war with Iran simply because they could, unable as they are to say exactly why they jumped into the conflict or articulate any coherent plan for ending it. They have control of the most powerful military on the planet and both men are simply too possessed by alpha dog impulsiveness to resist using it to blow stuff up.

It is only speculation, but maybe their quick foray into Venezuela to kidnap that country’s president went too easily. Perhaps it gave them the idea that Iran would be just a jolly adventure, as well, even though Iran is a far larger and more powerful country with a complex power structure that relies on no single individual or set of individuals. If they thought assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his circle of advisors and administrators would bring down the regime, they clearly do not understand Iran.

Even after depleting the U.S. arsenal in massive strikes against Iran, the radical Islamic regime remains in place with Khamenei’s son now installed as supreme leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps more entrenched in the government than before. The younger Khamenei has seen most of his family killed by American air strikes, so he is unlikely to be inclined toward the “unilateral surrender” that Trump is nonsensically demanding.

Instead, Iran continues to hit targets throughout the Middle East and, most alarmingly, is blocking the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of the world’s oil supply is shipped. Did Trump not expect Iran to escalate the war? Did he fail to understand that he has picked a fight with a regime filled with zealots who believe martyrdom is the highest act in service to their deity?

Did any of Trump’s obsequious advisors warn him about the risks he was taking? If so, he ignored them, just as he always ignores experts and professionals and, instead, proceeds according to his own whims.

Trump can unilaterally tear down a wing of the White House and get away with it. He can send his immigration goons into American cities and dare anyone to stop him. He can blow up alleged drug smugglers in little boats and bully politicians in Caracas, but he cannot rain missiles on Iran, take out the top leader, blow up a girls’ school and set an entire region on fire and just walk away from it with a phony claim of victory.

There will be dire consequences -- economic, political and geopolitical -- most of which were predictable. But Trump and the unserious, unqualified macho clown in charge of the Pentagon were both too ignorant and arrogant to perceive the calamity they were unleashing. And they are still too dumb to recognize how much trouble they have made for themselves and the nation they have misled.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/the-latest-key-oil-price-spikes-over-100-as-iranian-attacks-hit-shipping/.