Five months. That’s how long it took Donald Trump to get the United States into another Middle East war after he had told everyone he would “stop the chaos in the Middle East.” Trump, who proclaimed upon his inauguration he wanted to be remembered as a “peacemaker,” couldn’t even wait a half a year into his term to do the thing that he had told everyone he wouldn’t do, and which he built his entire political brand on opposing.
But Trump’s big adventure into the Middle East is likely to go even worse than George W. Bush’s. The mood of the American people is nothing like it was in 2003, and Trump’s White House has not even made a half-hearted effort to make it so. Bush was hugely popular, with approval ratings in the seventies and eighties, when he decided to invade Iraq. Thanks to a year-long, well-orchestrated propaganda campaign, a large majority of Americans backed his war and the lies that undergirded it.
Trump, by contrast, has been underwater with voters for almost his entire term and is only becoming less popular, while his bare minimum attempt to convince the public Iran had to be attacked means most of the country bitterly opposes this, even majorities of Republicans and his own voters. Trump’s shrinking approval may help explain why he decided to make this foolish and illegal decision — war is the oldest trick for a flailing leader desperate for a popularity boost. But this move is not likely to go his way any more than the other high-stakes policy gambles he’s taken in the interest of projecting strength. The most recent case in point: his decision to send troops onto American streets to quell protesters in Los Angeles, which has rebounded spectacularly on his political standing.
We are only at the start of what could be a long and destructive spiral. It is not Trump or his three underlings standing behind him as he announced this decision on TV that are going to be fighting this war. They have made…
Auteur: Branko Marcetic
