drone attack on Saudi Arabia is John Bolton vindicated on the view he holds of Iran? I believe Bolton has it right, the Iranians have no interest in peace and will continue to stoke destruction through proxies.
I think that the first answer to provocation is not necessarily war. Unlike the Bushes and Obama Trump basically does not agree in starting wars in the Muslim world and elsewhere, hence his efforts to try solve the problems in North Korea, Iran and even Iraq nd Syria through negotiation. He would like to see military misadventures stopped and American soldiers brought home in exact opposition to the madness of his predecessors. On the other hand wars cost money and he would rather spend money on uplifting the poor in the USA than embark on endless wars.
Obama signed a treaty with Iran and paid them $150 billion, which they used to cover cost of wars in Syria and Yemen. They broke every clause in that agreement and the West remained silent - Trump tore up the treaty when he found out what really was going on and re-introduce sanctions against Iran, which in fact this time around is working, .
That being said - after some preliminaries - like discussion in the UN - he is bound to take hard revenge like bombing the arms factories in Iran out of existence, Expect some real fireworks in this case sooner rather than later. His predecessors were \weak presidents and he is not.
Trump said the following:-
"Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!"
In other words, John Bolton is correct....tx.
Denny, I'm not an expert on Bolton, but he is generally being regarded as a warmonger. He is probably right about Iran in terms of the threat they pose to the world, but how the USA should respond to that threat is a whole different matter...
Trump has loads of common sense and is loath to get the USA into a war and rightly so.
Iran of course is run by the mad mullahs and being full on Muslims they hate the West and Israel.
Thank God that war mongerer Crooked Hillary is not in the Oval Office.
My guess is an airstrike on Iran oil facilities may happen at some point. A lot depends on how far Iran will push their aggression.
Whatever happens, US action or lack of action the Globalist MSM will find an angle whereby they will attack Trump.
Great post Mike!
Everyone knows that Iran is a festering sore in the middle east, like it or not the USA might have no option but to go to war. It's a war no-one wants, it will lead to dire consequences and the after effects will be felt worldwide. It's a case of damned if it's war and same again if there's no war.
I mean, are the Iranians going to gather in strength and laugh in Trump's face if he does nothing? And any retaliation involving an air strike will be regarded as an act of war.
Denny
In 2003 when Bush started the war in Iraq I had a chat with the French head of Siza Water. He said that France had more than a thousand years of war against the Arabs and realized that such a war is unwinnable and will go on for longer than anybody can imagine. Fact is the French wars against the Muslims from Spain started in about 750 and lasted until 872 under the reigns of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short and Charlemagne - the latter being the First Holy Roman Emperor.
Fact is the reason the Iraq War was not for the reason Bush and Blair said it was anyway. They wanted to get a change in the Iraq government that would give them access to the oil of Iraq. What they created was total instability and it is 2019 and Iraq is still an unholy mess,
Obama got involved in Syria, Libya and Iraq. It was during his presidency that Isis became a serious threat and one has to remember also his threat that gas warfare by the Syruan Government was a red line they dare not cross. The Syrian Government laughed in his face and continued the poison gas warfare, against the rebels in Syria.. In Libya the US ambassador and four staff members were murdered by ISIS. In the end Obama was forced to send troops back in to Iraq and Syria.
Trump inherited an unholy mess from both Bush and Obama. and tried a new angle - try and get the US out of the Middle Eat mess he inherited and was ready to talk to the Iran Government - bu t it is evident they do not want to talk and now this.
They will get hurt badly and the press will blame Trump for starting a new war, I think they will bombed until they plead for peace and start real negotiations. .
Bolton was probably right - but I think peace should though negotiation be the first option rather than through the barrel of the gun.Bolton is a looney toon with only one thing on his mind ... war.
Firing his was a step in the right direction.
" They wanted to get a change in the Iraq government that would give them access to the oil of Iraq."
If that was the reason, it was BS on their part. Two complete idiots. The USA has more oil than they themselves need. The UK has their north sea oil sources. Nah, I personally think that there was more to it than oil and that is only my own opinion. Remember during the first Gulf war under George HW, Sadam taunted the old Bush, saying that when everybody has forgotten who George HW Bush was, he (Sadam), would still be ruling in Iraq. I think, and I may be wrong, that George W had a personal score to settle with Sadam. That, coupled with the lobbying power of the arms industry. Never forget the might of the Industrial Military Complex because that is where the second part of your post comes in.
"Obama got involved in Syria, Libya and Iraq. "
Those wars were directly a result of the lobbying by the military industry. I have mentioned a few times that during the Benghazi hearings Trey Gowdy asked the one question that nobody replied to. He wanted to know when everybody, including the UK, have already removed their diplomatic personnel from Benghazi, WTF were the USA still doing in Benghazi? That question was never answered and remember, those committee members don't ask questions in Congress that they don't already know the answers for . At least not unless they are idiots like Ted Lieu, of course.
The USA presence in Benghazi was directly linked to weapons transactions in Syria. Weapons that found their way to the Libyan rebel forces and if found they could be an embarrassment for Obama and the Clintons. Bear in mind that Benghazi happened right at the tail end of an election campaign and Libya was supposed to be a feather in the Obama, but mainly Clinton cap. That was why they had to have Chris Stevens, the best "Middle East Ambassador" that the USA had available to them, right there in Benghazi. They smuggled him in on a Greek cargo ship, for goodness sake.
"They will get hurt badly and the press will blame Trump for starting a new war, I think they will bombed until they plead for peace and start real negotiations "
In hindsight Trump should probably have bombed the shyte out of them but if he does so now, nobody, not even the most hardline Dem, can realistically say that he did not try his best to avoid war. Not that that would stop them from doing so in any case, though.
Saddam who at one time was a US ally made the fatal mistake of popping a missile at the Vincenza.....the relationship went from bad to worse soon after.
Ben Laden was also a US ally but it all comes right back to the arms industry, most of the time.
US foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired, it has a habit of biting them on the arse.
None were any good....but the worst, geez that's a tough one.
Bush junior surrounded himself with the most war mongering threesome....Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, the last one I can't remember, but sad man, many a young man's life was needlessly lost because of those arseholes.
@Denny,
" Sep 16, 2019, 12:33
Bush junior surrounded himself with the most war mongering threesome....Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, the last one I can't remember, but sad man, many a young man's life was needlessly lost because of those arseholes. "
I know that it is probably hard to admit it but he third one was, of course, the holier than thou Saint Robert Mueller:
And then there is this....
Vlag
Did some research, the third person was Dick Cheney who served as Vice President under G W Bush. Rumsfeld was his Defence Secretary. All three were out an out warmongers and if pushed to pick the worst of the worst POTUS I would have to say George W Bush.
I think a POTUS candidate must be a kinda narcissist with a very strong will and vision to overcome these constant pressures coming from every conceivable direction. Nice guys won't make it in this pit brawl...you gotta be a bit of a d!ck to really succeed. A property developer building skyscrapers have an unique skillset that would come in handy.
Draad
If it is only the president is under attack by the democrats and the fake news media it could be understood - but the attacks are on all who may expose their corruption and abuses like Judge Kavanaugh
Remember we are dealing here with a criminal category of people like the Clintons and the mob is even turning to attacks on Obama - the second most incompetent President I have ever seen in my lifetime.
I can remember only one worse president than him - Carter - whose only version was top undermine the Shah of Iran and support of the Muslim fanatics who took over - anytime as bad as the Arab Spring story of Obama. In return the people he did see as the real champions of democracy in Iran turned on him and the result was one of the biggest presidential losses in US political history.
I gave him with reason the worst rated president since 1976 - but he had before that some real competition from the totally corrupt Johnson in the Vietnam War scenario.
However, I am not sure which of the party establishments are the worst - the Democrats or the Republicans? In 2016 a large component of the Republican Establishment (inclusive of the Bushes) was against Trump. They saw what happened and panicked - so now after the departure of McCain to greener pastures - they are in the main supporting Trump. Even Scot Walker - the previous Governor of Wisconsin - is now a Trump supporter.
In the media scenario Trump is using the leftist media to his full advantage, Every time they make a false claim and often enough they have to apologize it counts in his favour. May it continue - I am sure the US electorate is getting tired of their shenanigans and often enough their lies.
"I think a POTUS candidate must be a kinda narcissist...."
Most would regard Ronald Reagan as a successful POTUS and I doubt whether he had any bricklaying capabilities or was a narcissist.