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Casus Belli?

Planigale

Philosopher
Planigale
Joined
Jul 6, 2013
Messages
8,182
Location
49 North
On the news;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-48245204
Saudi complaining that oil tankers have been 'sabotaged'. Including one due to deliver oil to the US. Co-incidently (or not) the US has just moved military resources into the Gulf literally to threaten Iran. I suspect very shortly we will see Iran blamed, we will also hear people blaming the other usual suspects. Politically blaming Iran seems to be the path most likely to be taken by the present US administration. I await a period of ramping up tension then a US military strike on Iran. I am sure there are people who will have a better knowledge of when military escalation will be politically most expedient.
 
It improved Bush Junior's popularity immensely, which is probably one of the few facts of U.S. foreign policy that Trump is not unaware of.
 
The entire Trump administration is characterized by last-ditch efforts of regressive forces.

NeoCon politics-by-war is just another example: Bolton and Pompeo know that it is now or never.
 
I've been hearing reports (sourced to unnamed sources, so grain of salt) that Bolton is the real warmonger but Trump doesn't want a war.

Trump Tells Pentagon Chief He Does Not Want War With Iran (NY Times)

WASHINGTON — President Trump has sought to put the brakes on a brewing confrontation with Iran in recent days, telling the acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, administration officials said, while his senior diplomats began searching for ways to defuse the tensions.

Mr. Trump’s statement, during a Wednesday morning meeting in the Situation Room, sent a message to his hawkish aides that he does not want the intensifying American pressure campaign against the Iranians to explode into open conflict.

For now, an administration that had appeared to be girding for conflict seems more determined to find a diplomatic off-ramp.
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The administration’s internal debate over Iran was described by five senior officials who demanded anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
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Is John Bolton Manipulating Trump to Attack Iran? (The New Yorker)

From Bolton’s point of view, the danger is that Trump will negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran. Trump pulled out of the existing nuclear deal on the general principle that any deal negotiated by Barack Obama is bad and could be made better by renowned deal artist Donald Trump. The president has openly signaled his desire to negotiate with Iran. Trump could cut a slightly tweaked version of the old deal and declare the new, rebranded Iran nuclear agreement to be tough and effective, because Trump negotiated it. The NAFTA playbook, in other words. “We just don’t want them to have nuclear weapons,” he has said. “That’s all we want.”

But that’s definitely not all Bolton wants. The whole point of negating the Iran deal, for Bolton, was to force a confrontation on a wide array of Iranian behavior. His problem with the deal, aside from his hostility to negotiating deals in general, was that it stopped Iran’s nuclear program but let the regime maintain its political and conventional military influence. Bolton wants to broaden the terms of the conflict with Iran, which will inevitably lead to a war Bolton hopes can either cripple the regime or topple it altogether.
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the job of National Security Advisers is to balance the input and views of different parts of the Defense and IC community.
Putting a warmonger with a hawkish agenda in that role was pure insanity.
It's like putting a coal-lobbyist in charge of the EPA.
 
Planigale said:
On the news;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-48245204
Saudi complaining that oil tankers have been 'sabotaged'. Including one due to deliver oil to the US. Co-incidently (or not) the US has just moved military resources into the Gulf literally to threaten Iran. I suspect very shortly we will see Iran blamed, we will also hear people blaming the other usual suspects. Politically blaming Iran seems to be the path most likely to be taken by the present US administration. I await a period of ramping up tension then a US military strike on Iran. I am sure there are people who will have a better knowledge of when military escalation will be politically most expedient.
Click to expand...

Bait and switch before invading Venezuela?
 
Puppycow said:
Is John Bolton Manipulating Trump to Attack Iran? (The New Yorker)
Click to expand...

Bolton already has clearly manipulated Trump at least once before. He manipulated Trump into canceling the first North Korea summit and it was blatant (Pence may have been recruited into the effort). Of course, as something more about ego gratification (because, by internationally showcasing him as the master deal maker, it would have, in his view, given him a Nobel Peace Prize just like the one Obama got) than about geopolitics (a realm in which Trump has shamelessly demonstrated a spectacular level of ignorance: both in general and specifically regarding North Korea related issues), it didn't last since it was too important to Trump.

So it has been demonstrated that Bolton will not hesitate to blatantly undercut the president's efforts in order to promote his own agenda and that, under at least some circumstances, Trump can be too simple minded and weak to see through the manipulation and to resist it.

There exists a perception that in Trump's circle of advisers Jim Mattis (probably appointed by Trump for having a cool nickname) has served as a counterpoint to Bolton and that his de facto successor, acting Secretary of defense Shanahan, is likely not up to the task of standing up to Bolton.


ETA: While Bolton's notions of foreign policy in general are horrible, he was clearly right in regard to how whatever the proper way to engage diplomatically with North Korea the way Trump/Pompeo were doing it wasn't it.
 
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Puppycow said:
I expect some sabre-rattling, but not a war. I don't see how that's in anyone's interest.
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Did starting a trade war with china advance anyone's interests?

We will see what Bolton and Trump think, they are the ones in control after all.
 
Puppycow said:
I've been hearing reports (sourced to unnamed sources, so grain of salt) that Bolton is the real warmonger but Trump doesn't want a war.
Click to expand...

Trump says a lot of things, you are supposed to take him seriously not literally, so you can't exactly depend on what he says to mean anything. That was always one of his big selling points.
 
since Trump was told, emphatically, that he can't just steal the resources of other countries through occupation, he can't see the point in war.
 
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