Editor,

Iran is the proverbial tail that wags the dog in its ability to use inexpensive drones and mines to restrict the world’s access to oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has interpreted U.S. actions so far as a lack of resolve. President Trump must now focus on his role as commander in chief to defeat Iran’s IRGC and neutralize its nuclear capability along with Israel’s help. There is no other option.

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(20) comments

ClashFan

With all due respect, the U.S. and Israel lost on the battlefield. Robert Kagan in The Atlantic called it a total defeat and “one that can’t be repaired or ignored.” The U.S. airbases in the Gulf were destroyed. The Strait of Hormuz will be controlled by Iran and Oman from now on. It is their territorial waters, and they have been caretakers of it without a fee until now. Call it tolls or administrative or environmental fees, but it will cost Yuan or BitCoin to transit. Whether one likes it or not, the Empire is in decline, and alliances are shifting to adjust. I believe there is hope for peace in West Asia and beyond. Iran has no territorial objectives beyond its borders. It wants good relations with its neighbors. The region is working on a security alliance that does not include the U.S. This is part of a wider movement. What is needed is a return to the rules-based order, a new United Nations that can operate without U.S. veto power, which is what BRICS is aiming to do.

edkahl

Iran shot many thousand of it's own people in the streets and seeks to come a nuclear weapons power. Iran aggressed on Lebanon and Palestine with it's Hamas supported terrorist. Iran's Messianic Leaders only abide by their own rules. Iran must be stopped from aggressing on it's neighbors and we are fortunate to have Israel as a check on Iran's aggression.

ClashFan

Unfortunately each of the four points have been repeated so much by the opinion-forming media that they are generally accepted as true, which in fact they are not. We need to seek the truth and call out falsehoods when we see them.

CA Is Burning

Ar e you really trying to say that the Ayatollah's guards didn't shoot Iranian civilians and didn't murder over 36,000 citizens over the last year? 99% of media sources agree and there are countless videos posted on YouTube.com. Good grief, your TDS is really out of control.

Terence Y

Hilarious. Hey ClashFan, why would anyone give credence to what Robert Kagan writes? Mr. Kagan has full blown Trump Derangement Syndrome (which means emotional rather than logical or fact-based content). I’m sure there are a few people who think the U.S. and Israel lost on the battlefield. Especially if they’re playing a fantasy game. Perhaps Mr. Kagan is providing commentary on a fantasy game?

ClashFan

Mr Kagan is one of the architects of neocon policy, the one that brought the war in the first place. Please look at the facts because you’re not getting them from this authoritarian administration, unfortunately. And the opinion forming media is in the hands of a very few. But it’s worth doing the work.

Jorg

With his Iran-dealings, Trump doesn’t have the foggiest idea what he is doing! He even rejected resident Obama’s very thoughtful input, - from this former president so much more experienced and far better educated, way more insightful, and not the least, - way more honest.

Dirk van Ulden

Jorg - you must by now realize that Obama was a crook and allowed millions of non-eligible illegals to fleece our welfare systems. His library that opened today resembles a large fecal matter which is appropriate for his legacy. Sometimes, crooks like him, for some reason seem to infatuate persons like you, if only because they are articulate. As someone said before, there is a sucker born every minute and you are in that category. Also, the big difference between the MOU that Trump signed and the sloppy agreement that Obama authorized, is that in Obama's days, the Iranian regime had nuclear facilities which Trump pretty much incapacitated. If Obama had only a fraction of Trumps fortitude, Trump would not have had this needed military action. Obama may be intelligent in your book but otherwise he is and was stupid. You fell for it.

Jorg

My goodness, I never thought even you could sink that deep, Dirk! President Obama was far better educated, more accomplished and better liked than Trump, not to mention honest! He was also elected and re-elected with a much more comfortable margin than Trump, whose popularity and acceptance keep sinking deeper and deeper, with only the most republicanized still being fooled by him.

And as far as your judgement of me, I’ll let my life story stand without comments to someone who so obviously doesn’t know me or what I have done in my life. I don’t have much to be ashamed of, yet much to be proud of!

And YOU call President Obama stupid?!

Jorg

Btw, Dirk: What is it that fascinates you so much with Trump? That he is a convicted rapist, or something else, like liar, cheater and an uneducated moron?

Dirk van Ulden

Jorg - at least we have something in common. Your fascination is with a crook and charlatan whose activities were carefully screened or swept under the rug. Ever wondered how a guy who never had a real job ended up with mansions in DC, Chicago, Hawaii and Massachusetts? He made sure his cronies got lucrative contracts who, after he left office, paid him back. You will never read that in his ghost-written books. What exactly did he accomplish other than causing race riots and sucking up to Islamic potentates? Obama was an idealogue, nothing more.

Jorg

Dirk: The only excuse I can find for such nonsense, is that your understanding of the English language is somewhat limited. I doubt that you have even read President Obama’s books, or much of any other books in English for that matter.

Jorg

Dirk: How in your opinion, does Trump stack up against President Obama educationally, intellectually and presidentially, besides honesty and moral behavior? Who has been convicted of multiple rapes, for example, and who has a long history of cheating contractors? Why do you have to lie to find something against President Obama, while Trump is a well-known crook, - who even brags about his p-grabbing?

Jorg

Dirk: What do you mean by “a guy who never had a real job”? Without a father in the picture, Obama had to work odd jobs from an early age, then after his law degree from Harvard, with top grades, he taught law, before he ended up in politics and eventually as a senator, before being elected POTUS twice, with comfortable margins. Compared to that, what’s Trump’s work record, and his scholastic accomplishments?

Jorg

Are there still people so slow that they haven’t realized yet how completely incompetent Trump is?

CA Is Burning

Talking about slow, Jorg and ClashFan supported and still support braindead Joe. Were you two snookered like Joe's own wife, and the leftwing media or did you simply blockhead out Joe's easily detectable dementia? You have ZERO credibility at this point, burp, repeat the same thoughts that dance in your head due to your full blown TDS. There is a cure, put your hate aside and seek the truth. Michael Savage had a great book that is spot on today, "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder"

ClashFan

Agreed we need to seek the truth and emotions can get in the way of seeking the truth. Wilhelm Reich, in The Mass Psychosis of Fascism, wrote, “ Power, no matter what kind of power it is, without a foundation in truth, is a dictatorship, more or less and in one way or another, for it is always based on man’s fear of the social responsibility and personal burden that ‘freedom’ entails.”

Obama’s and Biden’s foreign policy was a continuation of the neocon policy that brought us the war in Iraq. Witness the U.S. sponsored coup in Ukraine in 2014 and the destruction of the Nordstream pipeline. We had hope that Trump would stop the “forever wars,” but he took control of Venezuela’s oil and then tried to overthrow iran first from inside and then bombing. Now the current administration realizes the war they started is unwinnable by force (not that they won’t still try) and is pushing the world closer to the edge of a financial cliff. Trump is correct to end the war and follow through on the points outlined in the MOU to negotiate a proper treaty. He is putting Vance out to be the spokesperson and to stand up to Bibi, which is the factor that could break the deal, so we need to cut off funding for wars of aggression. That’s in our hands. Even if the shooting stops in Lebanon and Gaza and elsewhere and traffic in the Gulf is open today, It will take months to a year or more to get things flowing again to pre-war levels. And there is the threat of using nuclear weapons and false flag operations that target Iran. If this leads to a global depression, that may cause economic collapse in the US.

Jorg

Even top Republicans criticize the stupid deal with Iran that Trump was fooled into signing, - after he had ripped apart a much stronger and far more advantageous deal that President Obama had worked out, years ago. Don’t they see that Trump is sailing towards the proverbial cliff?

easygerd

GOP friends and family had this to say on Fox News and The Hill:

"The details of this agreement, as we've seen them, it does not look like we are the victors."

"This does not feel like a victory."

"Smacks of appeasement."

"I thought somebody was spoofing me."

"Iran is the biggest winner of all this."

"Trump stages an Iran retreat."

"The regime gets financial relief to reopen Hormuz."

"Tremendous foreign policy plunder."

"Makes absolutely no sense."

"It's not defensible."

"Inexplicable."

"Disaster."

"They played him like a fiddle."

"The Big Beautiful Bribe"

Jorg

Finally, does even Fox News realize what an empty fake Trump is!

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