Snorts and Slurs

The Off Ramp:  Yesterday morning, Trump took to the podium to deliver his response to Iran’s Tuesday evening missile attack of the two US military bases in Iraq.  Though he mostly stuck to the script during his nine minute speech, his style was abrupt and peculiar; he snorted more than fifty times while slurring his words, a reminder that we still don’t know why he took that emergency trip to Walter Reed Medical Center in December.  He wasn’t conciliatory, he reiterated that Iran wouldn’t get nukes on his watch, but did appear to be trying to defuse the situation saying that since no one, American or Iraqi, was killed as a result of the missile barrage, there would be no retaliation at this time.  He attributed the lack of casualties to the superiority of his military’s capabilities, including the warnings from the intelligence agencies to take shelter, that the raids were imminent.  Apparently those deep state intelligence guys are an asset when they aren’t digging up dirt on his misdeeds. And of course, Trump blamed the whole Iran situation as well as the missile attacks on Obama because three years into his regime, everything, except of course good things about the economy, is due to Obama’s failings.  To that end, Trump claimed that the billions of Iran’s dollars that had been returned to them upon the signing of the JCPOA nuclear agreement had funded the missile attack.  Trump also called on NATO to step up to the plate and help, a bit bizarre when you consider how many times he’s threatened to leave that “useless” organization, and asked the other signatories to the JCPOA to join him in negotiating a new deal with Iran, a ship that probably has sailed.  The NY Times attributed Trump’s decision to take the off ramp, or to take it at this time, to feedback from allies and some of the less hawkish members of his Senate fan base. As to the Iranians, they probably aren’t done yet, it’s expected that their future attacks will come from their surrogates.      

Trust Me?  Back to the killing of Iran General Soleimani, the action that brought us to this brink of war in the first place, yesterday members of the House and Senate were provided with confidential briefings about the “imminent” terrorist attacks that served as justification for his assassination.  Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel, Chair of the Foreign Affairs committee, said the evidence presented was so vague that it boiled down to “trust me” and Democrat Gerald Connally called it “sophomoric” and “utterly unconvincing.” Utah’s Senator Mike Lee, a Republican who is generally very supportive of Trump, concurred with the Democrats.  He emerged from the SCIF furious about the inadequacy of the briefing.  He called it “insulting and demeaning,” saying that the briefers, Defense Secretary Esper, Secretary of State Pompeo, CIA Director Haspel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley, provided few specific details about what imminent threat existed that warranted the drone strike that killed Soleimani.  Not all that shocking when you consider that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy who’s been known to say the quiet stuff out loud suggested on Tuesday that Trump would not have ordered the drone strike were it not for that impeachment stuff. Senator Lee went on to say that the briefers were curt and rushed and had the nerve to instruct senators that they were not entitled to debate the appropriateness of further military action against Iran because that would serve to embolden the Ayatollah and his cronies. Lee was so angry that he called the briefing crowd out for “appearing before a co-equal branch of government responsible for their funding, for their confirmation, for any approval of any military action they might undertake…..for telling us that we need to be good little boys and girls and run along and not debate this in public. I find that absolutely insane. I think it's unacceptable.”  Lee now plans to join fellow Republican Senator Rand Paul in supporting a Senate version of the War Powers Resolution that would limit what military action Trump can take against Iran that is being sponsored by Democratic Senator Tim Kaine.  Speaker Pelosi is expected to bring the House’s version of that resolution up for a vote today.

Et Cetera:  Though a number of Democratic Senators including Feinstein and Manchin are now calling on Speaker Pelosi to send over the Articles of Impeachment she still hasn’t budged though indications are that she will send them over soon.  Questions are being raised about that Ukrainian airline plane that crashed and burned in Iran on Tuesday with some suspecting that it may have been inadvertently felled by one of those Iranian missiles meant for the US bases in Iraq. If that turns out to be true, than contrary to Trump’s assertion, many people including 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 29 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans and three Brits were killed as a result of the attack. The black boxes have been recovered from the crash site but given the state of relations with the US and their possible culpability Iran has no plans to share them with Boeing though officials did say that they would cooperate with Ukraine so the boxes might eventually make it to a competent team of examiners, unless of course Vlad gets them first.  Hard to believe that we aren’t even two weeks into the year.