It was one of those Midwest mornings where a hint of Spring either gives you optimism about better days to come, or it’s just setting you up for another arctic blast. At any rate, Monday showed promise for more melting snow and we didn’t have to stomp our boots at the front door of Bert’s Diner.
It was unusually quiet in the backroom Bert sets aside for the Mumblers. Undeclared and needless war numbs you I guess.
We were all, I think, trying to process how a president tears up a perfectly good nuclear treaty with a country, then in a second term bombs its nuclear labs and storage areas and declares there is no more nuclear threat then bombs the hell out of urban areas in that country because it poses…wait for it…a nuclear threat.
When we got settled, the orders in, I asked “well, what’s everyone think?”
“I think we got a crazy sumbitch running the show,” Reuben Barnes said. “I mean, blowing up a girls’ school?”
We all had spent the weekend watching the news, trying to figure out what was going on while Israel and the US blew the hell out of downtown Tehran, killing its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and 40-some other high officials, including ones Trump later said would have been his picks to lead a post-Khamenei government. Oops.
We quickly determined there was no real immediate threat to national security, that there remained a chance for negotiations to work and that, as usual with Trump, there had to be some hidden agenda. Or, the man is just bat-shit crazy and riding a greased rail into dementia. Or, both.
“I think the reason for the attack is quite simple,” our former bank president Will Sturgill said. “I’d like to take credit for astute analysis but I have to give credit to Rachel Maddow for reminding me that you should always follow the money.
“Trump is simply doing what the people who own him want done. Those people would include other Arab states which have given sweetheart deals to the Trump family, including Jared Kushner, his son-in-law. It would include the Saudis who have poured $2 billion dollars into Trump’s crypto company. And of course, we have Qatar who has gifted Trump a $400 million jet he plans to take with him when he leaves office.
“Bottom line? These countries, along with some billionaires, have either bought or rented this administration and by extension, our military,” Will said.
“Yeah, but how do they benefit from war and regimen change?” Sam Robertson asked.
“It’s pretty obvious,” Will said. “First Iran is a rogue nation. No way can you defend this regime. These other countries figure with a puppet government in there they can control they will get some stability. It also means, I am guessing, that there will be a free-for-all to exploit Iran’s oil and other resources if there is a change in government. Hell, that was made clear in the negotiations. ‘Give us resources and we’ll leave you alone.’”
I decided to toss in my two cents worth.
“I think the whole regime change thing is either bogus or a case of the most piss-poor planning since we invaded Iraq and forget to disarm all the soldiers who faded into the woodwork,” I said. “Wouldn’t you think that if you wanted regime change, you’d have the CIA, with the help of allies, going in and laying the groundwork? You know, organizing opposition, finding people who could step into leadership roles. None of that happened.
“It’s not like we haven’t meddled in Iran before,” I added. “We actually created this sorry mess back in 1953. Iran had just elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh. At the time England was upset by his election because he called for an audit of the joint British-Iran oil company that later became a part of British Petroleum. He was concerned Iran was getting screwed and he nationalized the oil companies.
“So, England’s M16 and our CIA organized a coup that toppled him, got the oil companies back in foreign hands and installed the Shah. Fast forward to when the Shah, a total dictator and US puppet, was overthrown and our embassy seized. We basically caused all this, “I said. “And, we are meddling again without any thought given to the unanticipated consequences of our actions. There is no plan here.”
“Shit,” Reuben said. “And did you hear how he dismissed deaths of our troops with ‘that’s the way it is?’”
“What about the ‘war powers’ thing?” Herb Stratton asked.
“Well, that’s not so easy to answer,” Will Campbell, our former DA and county judge said. “The president does have the right to respond instantly to an imminent threat to the nation and that’s what he’s claiming here. Some members of Congress are claiming, probably correctly, that there was no imminent threat so he should have come to Congress for approval. Of course, we have not had a declared war since World War II so it’s not like Trump is the first president to dance around the Constitution and the role of Congress. He’s just the most flagrant and incompetent.”
We batted the topic around and came to a few conclusions, not including that everyone in this Administration is incompetent, corrupt and anti-democracy. We made tjat am underlying assumption.
One, there was no immediate threat from Iran of a nuclear weapon nor intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Two, negotiations were progressing, despite the zero experience level of the US team led by Kushner and a real estate developer. There was no reason to suspend them.
Three, there is no plan for how to achieve regime change, how to manage the aftermath of the air strikes so there is no telling what will happen in the next few weeks.
Four, Trump has just blown up the economy by jeopardizing the flow of oil, which just does not go into our car’s gas tank. Oil is critical to countless forms of product manufacture.
Five, nothing about this eases economic pressures on the average American and his/her family.
Six, Trump does not give a damn about the average American family or anyone else outside his bunker.
Seven, there must be something really, really bad about Trump in the Epstein files that led him to create “Operation Epstein Diversion.”
With those conclusions reached and plates empty, we voted to adjourn and go watch the snow melt.