Friends,
America is on the brink of a full-scale war with Iran — but no one is willing to say exactly why, including the occupant of the Oval Office.
But there are clues.
The U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, is en route from the Caribbean Sea to the Middle East. It should arrive there within days. The U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and three guided-missile destroyers are already there.
As the world’s largest armada assembles near Iran, a second round of talks between the U.S. and Iran has just concluded, apparently without getting anywhere. Meanwhile, Tehran is conducting military drills in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial choke point for the world’s oil.
Americans have never had exceedingly long attention spans, but the last year of Trump “flooding the zone” has further shortened them. To refresh memories:
In late June, Trump claimed that U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites had been “a spectacular military success” and that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” He told reporters that “Iran’s not going to have a nuclear weapon. I think it’s the last thing on their mind right now.”
Nearly six months later, in early January, when Iranians took to the streets, Trump warned that if Iran threatened protesters’ lives, the U.S. would “come to their rescue.” He said, “We are locked and loaded, and ready to go.”
As the reported death toll in the protests soared into the hundreds, Trump urged the protesters to take over Iranian institutions and log the names of their “killers and abusers.” “HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” he posted in all caps. “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!.”
Yet despite reports that as many as 3,428 Iranians had been killed and that more executions were imminent, no help was on its way. Many Iranians said they felt betrayed and confused by Trump’s failure to act.
By the fourth week of January, Trump once again talked about Iran, saying, “We have a lot of ships going that direction, just in case.”
In case of what? By then the death toll in Iran was said to be more than 5,000 (some reports had it many times higher), but Trump no longer even mentioned Iran’s brutal crackdown.
On January 28, with U.S. ships assembling in the Middle East, Trump said of the armada, “like with Venezuela, it is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.”
What exactly was this “mission?” And why did Trump compare it to the mission in Venezuela? It was a clue.
Last week, Trump warned that the U.S. would attack Iran unless it made a “deal” and has “NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS.”
But the Trump regime’s apparent objectives have shifted once again.
Yesterday — after a second round of talks between Iran and the United States concluded in Geneva without any breakthrough, and Iran insisted that the talks be strictly limited to its nuclear program — U.S. officials said they’re pushing to curb all of Iran’s ballistic missiles and its support of militias across the region.
In an interview with Fox News yesterday, JD Vance said the Iranians aren’t acknowledging some “red lines” that Trump has set, but Vance didn’t say what those red lines were.
***
I wouldn’t be as worried if we had a thoughtful person in the Oval Office, a competent secretary of defense, and a secretary of state who seemed to be in charge.
But we don’t have any of them.
The United States is being represented in the talks by “Special Envoy” Steve Witkoff (whose son is the chief executive of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company, nearly half of which was purchased last year for $500 million by an investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates). And by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner (who’s been making private deals with the Saudis and who raised several billion dollars before Trump’s second term from overseas investors including sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates).
No one from the State Department. Nobody from the National Security Council. No one who knows much of anything about Iran.
So what’s the real goal?
On Friday, in a little-noticed remark, Trump said “the best thing that could happen” in Iran would be regime change, noting “there are people” who could take over from Iran’s Islamic ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Bingo.
Trump promised his MAGA base that he wouldn’t be involved in seeking regime changes abroad. But that was before he abducted Venezuela’s Nicholás Maduro and replaced him with Maduro’s vice president.
Yet regime change in Iran would be far, far more difficult to pull off than regime change in Venezuela. The Middle East has demonstrated that it can swallow up America, even with the largest fighting force in the world. Anyone remember Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and … Iran?
This post has been syndicated from Robert Reich, where it was published under this address.