All is Well?

Fierce Revenge:  No further information about those imminent events that served as the justification for the killing of General Soleimani have been provided to anyone beyond Trump’s tweet that “They were planning something….We had tremendous information.  We’ve been following him for a long time and we followed his path for those three days and they were not good stops. We didn’t like where he was stopping. They were not good stops.”  Given that incoherent Trumpian explanation it should come as no surprise that things are going about as well as can be expected.  Last night Iran retaliated for the drone strike that took out Soleimani by launching more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq that house US forces. Calling the strikes their “fierce revenge” Iran insisted that upwards of twenty US soldiers were killed, however, US military officials says that no one, American or Iraqi, was killed as a result of the attacks. For his part, while bragging about America’s military superiority, Trump responded to the missile attack by tweeting “All is well” and “So far so good” while promising to make an immediate statement, one that was then rescheduled to this morning likely because his aides feared what he would say and needed more time to script a coherent response.  Optimists insist that since no one was killed during the missile barrage,  the attack has cleared the air, providing an off ramp for Trump and Iran’s Ayatollah to pull back from the edge of war. That would be nice, but don’t count on it.  It’s highly likely that Iran’s surrogates, most particularly Hezbollah, will follow-up with a series of their own attacks against US targets and quite possibly Israel and that some type of cyberattack will eventually follow. As to long term strategy, there doesn’t appear to be one.  Officials at the Defense Department are still trying to dig themselves out from the embarrassment of “accidentally” sending out that “inaccurate” memo detailing the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, Trump now says that our troops are staying put in Iraq.  He also says that he’s given up on the idea of destroying any of Iran’s cultural sites because that would be against the law, and he likes to follow the law. UK’s Boris Johnson, Germany’s Angela Merkel, and France’s Emmanuel Macron have warned Trump to show restraint to “end the cycle of violence” as have representatives from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  The message from Saudi Arabia came during an Oval Office meeting yesterday between Trump and Saudi Arabia’s Vice Minister of Defense Khalid bin Salman, MBS’s younger brother, a meeting that the White House failed to publicly disclosed but that we all learned about from the Saudis. And of course, at least publicly, all the Republicans with the exception of Senator Rand Paul and pundit, sometime Trump whisperer, Tucker Carlson think Trump’s Iran policy is super-duper terrific while all of the Democrats, with the exception of former Senator/VP candidate Joe Lieberman, think he’s off his rocker and wagging the dog.     

Impeach, Impeach, Impeach:  Senate Leader Mitch McConnell appears to have convinced each and every member of his Republican contingent that moving forward with the impeachment trial without any commitment to call witnesses is the way to go.  Speaker Pelosi told her House crowd that she will not send the Articles of impeachment to the Senate until she learns more about how they would conduct the trial but it’s not clear how much longer she can get away with holding out.  For their part, the unlikely duo of former Solicitor General Neal Katyal and conservative lawyer/Kellyanne spouse George Conway have written another one of their joint op-eds.  Published in today’s NY Times, the op-ed asks why if he is so sure that Trump is innocent does Mitch McConnell fear hearing what John Bolton has to say about Trump and the Ukraine mess. So basically, impeachment remains in limbo, but probably won’t stay there for long.  And any chance of hearing from Bolton or any other witnesses continues to rest on hopes that a few Republicans will vote for them to be called to testify after the cases for and against Trump are presented.

Et Cetera: Citing his lack of cooperation and failure to accept responsibility for his actions, Department of Justice prosecutors are seeking the maximum sentence of up to six months for one time national security advisor Michael Flynn. No doubt Flynn still expects to be pardoned by his good friend Trump who will then bring him along on the campaign stump to warm up his adoring crowds.  Though Trump failed to mention it or express any concern, Puerto Rico is suffering again from blackouts resulting from a series of earthquakes and a Ukrainian Boeing 737, not the Max, just a run of the mill 737, crashed due to a catastrophic engine problem shortly after takeoff from an airport in Iran. A Ukrainian crash in Iran, weird coincidence?