(Dobbs) No Mr. President, We Haven't Won YetWe can’t believe a single word that pours out of Trump's mouth.
President Trump said just two weeks into the war, “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough.” Maybe that’s the one time so far that he’s been right. If the Iranians were able to pierce U.S. defenses again yesterday with missiles and drones and injure at least ten American troops and inflict damage on two American aircraft at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base, then no, we haven’t won enough. At least so far, we haven’t won at all. We don’t want casualties during a war. They are tragic but they are inevitable. So casualties aren’t the issue here. Credibility is. The president’s. Since today is another No Kings Day, it might be the right time to say, the emperor has no clothes. Donald Trump has been boasting repeatedly that Iran’s forces are “obliterated.” But if they still have the kind of arsenal that can attack America’s Gulf allies and hit American troops, and still be firing at Israel too— another missile barrage packed with cluster munitions made a fatal attack last night on Tel Aviv— then although they’ve been weakened, I’m sorry but they’re certainly not obliterated. On the heels of Trump’s insistence this past week that the U.S. has had conversations with Iran but Iran’s insistence that they haven’t, the president told his cabinet, “They are negotiating. They’re begging to make a deal.” I’m sorry, but attacking Americans again in Saudi Arabia— having not just the weapons but the technical knowhow and the intelligence to find U.S. targets— doesn’t sound like begging at all. Since the war started, which is four weeks ago today, Iran has hit its marks in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Iraq. We have bases in every one. Now Iran says it has mobilized a million fighters in case the United States sends ground troops in, and thousands are on their way. It warns of a “historic hell for American forces.” Already it has managed to strangle the Strait of Hormuz and make the global economy gasp for breath. I’m sorry, but I can only repeat the quote from last week’s Economist: “Even if Donald Trump claims to have ‘destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capabilities’… the remaining 0% is clearly disrupting the global economy by reducing its oil supply by 10% to 15%.” But the president is not humbled in any way. When he spoke yesterday to a convention in Florida, he said, “They have to open it up, they have to open up the Strait of Trump. I mean Hormuz.” He then said as if he was joking, “Excuse me, I’m so sorry. Such a terrible mistake.” But it wasn’t. He was straight about that: “Fake news will say ‘he accidentally said.’ No, there’s no accidents with me. Not too many.” Anyone else’s ego would be shattered by a failure to bring Iran to heel by now. But not Trump’s. His is insatiable. Share I wrote just yesterday about how sad it is that with Iran consistent about its positions while Donald Trump’s oscillate like a yo-yo, we might as likely take Iran’s word for the state of the war as the president’s. How can we do otherwise when he puts on his macho face and tries to calm Americans jittery about the rising price of gas and the plummeting price of stocks, assuring us that this whole war is just “a short term excursion,” while Iran’s ability to fight back, which the U.S. didn’t expect, unmasks how deceptive or delusional he is? Trump has no credibility. We can’t believe a single word that pours out of his mouth. If you take nothing else from this column, take that. If commentators stop writing about and citizens stop thinking about these things, they could start to seem normal. |