Discussion: Iran Pits The Machiavellian Pompeo Against Policy Ideologue Bolton

I think Trump wants face time, like a made-for-TV summit featuring heroic camera angles, soaring orchestral score, and a multimedia smoke and laser lights show out of a Pink Floyd tribute show.

Culminating in a dramatic alpha male hand shake.

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It is all about the theatrics, and the worse the band is, the better the light show needs to be.

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Trump this week denied reports of infighting and told Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan that he doesn’t want war with Iran.

Call me skeptical about anything Trump says.
Too often he means the opposite of what he is saying.

I guess we can all rest easy with these Three Stooges running foreign policy…

Moe Trump - President with all the wisdom and judgment of a drawer full of hammers, and the cultural empathy of an Iguana.

Larry Pompeo - Secretary of State whose primary qualification for the job is apparently his documented Islamaphobia and religious bigotry, oh an also the fact that he’s had an arm of the Koch Brothers so far up his ass that when they think- his lips move.

Shemp Bolton - A supposed neo-con Secretary of Defense so foaming at the mouth for needless wars that he makes Dr. Strangelove look like Gandhi.

I mean what could possibly go wrong?

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nailed it

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Worst throwback thursday ever!

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In my opinion both Pompeo and Bolton are sycophants. The problem is Trump being clueless about foreign policy, accept for what Putin tells him, has no consistent or informed view. I mean the fact that Bolton who was the biggest supporter of the Iraq War in the Bush administration can work for Donald “Bush lied America into a disastrous war with Iraq” Trump says that Bolton is nothing more then a yes man. Therefore the real clash is between Trump and Trump as he has no clue what to do and has no consistent or informed view for his yes men.

That said, remembering that Trump under his emergency declaration to “build a wall” is taking money from the military for spare parts/military preparedness and maintenance that would be required for the military to be ready for any war let alone a war with a nation the size of Iran, and also remembering that back when Bush was president every time oil prices would dip Dick Cheney would get them to rebound by shaking his fist at Iran, I think what is happening is under orders for Putin who has the most to gain from higher oil prices, Trump is manufacturing a crisis to cause world oil prices to jump which benefits Russia and hurts America.

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War is a racket.

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So, does anyone happen to have a detailed map of the Iranian coast? I’m looking for the Gulf of El-Tonkin, apparently not to far from the Straits of Hormuz? Asking for a friend…

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Hey, the invasion of Grenada was apparently a huuuge success!

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Trump has been listening to his Saudi friends. The Saudis know all of their assets are within range of Iran’s missiles.

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From Wiki re: Bolton, classic gutless American chickenhawk:

Bolton was a supporter of the Vietnam War, but purposely avoided military service in Vietnam.[37][31] During the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, Bolton drew number 185. (Draft numbers were assigned by birth date.)[38] As a result of the Johnson and Nixon administrations’ decisions to rely largely on the draft rather than on the reserve forces, joining a Guard or Reserve unit became a way to avoid service in the Vietnam War, although 42 Army Reserve units were called up with 35 of them deployed to Vietnam shortly after the Tet offensive in 1968–69.[39][40] Before graduating from Yale in 1970, Bolton enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard rather than wait to find out if his draft number would be called.[41][42] (The highest number called to military service was 195.)[43] He saw active duty for 18 weeks of training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, from July to November 1970.[42] After serving in the National Guard for four years, he served in the United States Army Reserve until the end of his enlistment two years later.[5]

He wrote in his Yale 25th reunion book: “I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost.”[37] In a 2007 interview, Bolton explained his comment in the reunion book saying his decision to avoid service in Vietnam was because “by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from.”[44][45][46]

One more time: saying his decision to avoid service in Vietnam was because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from."

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