This was a great read.

Trump's hostility to Iran is impelled by his craven and obsequious posture towards the Saudi monarchy. Which is, no doubt, impelled in turn by cold, hard cash.

Only a Weak and Incompetent "president" would do this.

We should Fire both Trump and Pence.

One of the more compelling what-if moments in recent American history: Carter beats Reagan in 1980? Not because Carter would have been more compassionate toward Iran or, really, less belligerent in any foreign policy endeavor, not as one of Rickover's boys, but Reagan had all that Prop 13 momentum and all those markers to call in from 1976's campaign. If he doesn't win in 1980, what figure comes to symbolize RR's revolution? Given the direction of both political parties, I'm sure a properly media-friendly face would have come along.

But to Mr Mudede's point, presuming a Carter win may not have warmed Iranian-American relations in the near term. It might have warmed them sooner than waiting on the Obama Administration to put some Sterno under them, though, and perhaps have cooled the ardor of two generations of US military scenario-makers. They would have found another target for their holstered passions, of course, just not Iran. Or maybe just not quite so much Iran?

How much would recent Middle Eastern history have changed if Iran wasn't considered the straight-up superest-villain by Americans and their interests...?

6: And a war with Russia means global nuclear war and omnicide. No US war with Russia could ever be limited or winnable.

War during a pandemic is Trump's wet dream(sorry for the visual, everybody)

He gets to cause misery here, and misery everywhere else in the world.

That's all the guy has ever been about, folks: causing misery for his own enjoyment.

He's the school bully-in-chief.

@6- I used to think that our David was in some sense a member of a vanishing local breed- a somewhat principled Republican.
Misguided but harmless and worthy of some compassion.
But no more, now he just posts to throw out hateful, random shit purely to be provocative and get a response and some attention, ie a classic "troll".
So now, along with our resident 404 troll, I just scroll past their crap.

Not too sure that now is the time for war with Iran, but after the pandemic subsides and the economy remains in a shambles that will almost certainly be the time. By November the zombie hordes, with their two week memory (at best), may well not recall there was a virus, just like, for instance in 92 when they quickly forgot about Bush The First's magnificent victory in the first Gulf war. A war will be Trump's only hope.

Some background, obviously from my perspective:
When W came to power his first state of the union defined Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the evil axis. A year later we went to war with Iraq despite knowing they had nothing to do with 9/11 and strongly suspecting the intelligence on WMD provided by Israel and Saudi Arabia is dubious and meant to get the US clear Saddam out of the way.
Both Iran and North Korea freaked out and decided to develope their own nuclear capability in order to deter US from coming after them as well.

Fast forward few years later… Israel and Saudis tried to convince the US to go after Iran. The Obama administration declined and instead saw an opportunity: 80 million Iranians, fairly educated for the region, eager to get their iphones, pepsi, as well as modernizing their oil production. Hard liners in Iran and the US were and still are very suspicious of each other, yet despite it all the nuclear agreement negotiated was observed by Iran.
Our other Mid East clients, mostly the two countries already mentioned as well as others such as Egypt and the UAE, freaked out that this may mean a long term shift in US policy in the region. US arms manufacturers freaked out as well as it didn’t seem likely the Iranians will be allowed to get any US made weapons, and if peace and prosperity hit the region, god forbid, then Israel and Saudi Arabia may not need all the billions in weapons we provide them annually.

That said, the Iranians aren’t saints either. They did more than their fair share to destabilize Iraq after the US invasion and they used the fall of Iraq to establish a Shiite land continuty all the way to the Mediterranean, teaming up with Iraqi Shiites, the Shiite Assad regime and Hezbollah in Lebanon. (Such concern was voiced by people opposing the US going into Iraq in the first place, and obviously ignored.)

kalli @ 11
The "somewhat principled Republican" image is what raindrop is attempting to project, often unsuccessfully. To their credit, his Shoreline friend never really tried.

@3 Will in Seattle and @11 kallipugos: Agreed, seconded, and bravo!
@16 CMDwannabe: Thank you for providing further insight on the situation in Iran and the Middle East.

A war with Iran is of course very possible, but I would suspect Venezuela would be more likely
As you read this the U.S. is increasing its military presence in the Caribbean, and the U.S. has issued an arrest warrant for Maduro, so Panama part two?

@19, Of course we'll go to war with Venezuela: Our troops will give them their Covid-19 viruses and sicken them into submission.

@14 Garb Garbler: Kokonut Kenny, like Doofus in Shoreline, is already dying of MAGAvirus, along with the majority of the human population of the Southeastern United States.
@15 Rhizome: You don't know your history very well, sonny. I am a Gulf War veteran. G.H.W. Bush pulled the troops--not himself--out of Iraq in 1991, NOT in 1992. That war lasted only 96 hours before Bush declared a ceasefire. General Herbert "Stormin'" Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. wanted to finish the job but his actions were suddenly halted by order of G.H.W. Bush, and that was the end of it. Only to protect the Bush family of their private oil interests.

@10 AlaskanbutnotSeanParnell: Reason #1 why I voted for Hillary in 2016,
and I haven't regretted it.

What one-sided bullshit from Charles again.
"On April 4, 2020, eight factions of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) issued a joint statement, accusing the Iraqi-designated P.M. Adnan Al-Zurfi of being an "American agent," and threatening to increase attacks against U.S. forces if Iraqi lawmakers approved his cabinet."
Right now Iran is desperately trying to stop a pro-US government in Iraq from being formed and area funding terrorism to do so through their proxies the Asaib Ahl Al-Haq Movement and many others. Please Charles, be less fucking bias and report the facts. Trump is an idiot, he does stupid things, the Nuclear deal was flawed but better than nothing and Trump has hurt us by undermining peace there... while at the same time moving faster toward peace in Afghanistan and ending that war than Obama ever did...

@ 26
"while at the same time moving faster toward peace in Afghanistan and ending that war than Obama ever did..."
That's laughable at best. Everyone knows the taliban are not going to follow through on any of their stated commitment. A right wing nut can get away with a "who cares" attitude while any other president would have been considered a traitor for leaving Afghanistan in such manner.

@27 laughable? We are literally closer than ever to some kind of peace whether the Taliban rule Kabul after we fly away or not. They called Obama a traitor anyway, he should have killed Osama and brought the troops home the next day. Now we have to watch Trump try to imitate cowboy Reagan to avoid a repeat of Saigon

Trump may talk like he'll start a all-out war with Iran, but the facts point in the opposite direction (standard procedure for this administration). The carrier Harry S Truman has been pulled out of the Arabian Sea, and no other carrier group has been cycled in: a situation unprecedented in the last 40 years. The Teddy Roosevelt's skipper took his lumps for keeping his ship off its war-footing in the Pacific, not the Arabian Sea. We may continue the same bloody slog of drone strike assassinations and proxy wars in the Middle East as we've done for decades, tacitly admitting that the 2003 upgrade to tanks and jets and grunts was a mistake; but tanks and jets and grunts still have their place in confrontations with opponents who themselves are enamored of tanks, jets, stomping combat boots and shiny new aircraft carriers. Currently, that opponent is China. May cooler heads prevail.

@23 I voted for her in the fall, too. And campaigned for her ALL fall. Not sure what your point is there.

@24: I guess your idea of a "cure" is to die during the MAGAvirus pandemic along with all the other Trump/ Pence rubes, Kokonut Kenny. Like sitting ducks. Give my best to Geraldo.

@30 AlaskanbutnotSeanParnell: Just imagine what the U.S. and the world would be like right now if Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the White House?
That's my point. We WOULDN'T be in the shitstorm we are in now, because a fully competent, well qualified WOMAN was in the White House, not a blathering, incompetent Orange toddler who got illegally bought in by the Kochs, an outdated electoral college, and Russian hackers.