Earl Ofari Hutchinson
I don’t know if Trump saw or even heard of the 1997 satirical movie Wagging the Dog. But he sure took a monster page from it with his needless, heedless, totally absurd, lie and myth spinning assault on Iran. In the film, a US president was in domestic free fall. To reverse it he starts a war with a country that has zilch capacity to fight back. He hopes and prays that as wars usually go the home folk will dutifully rally round the flag and of course forgive and forget the president’s miserable job performance.
Trump fit that morbid scenario perfectly. In the month before he sent the bombs and missiles flying toward Tehran, his poll approval numbers had plunged to near record lows. And with good reason, mounting job losses, roaring unaffordability, his under fire out of control ICE, he was roundly pounded for his racist dig at the Obamas, and tariffs that caused even more economic pain. Topping this was the never-ending finger point at him for his much denied but very real one-time Epstein tie.
Now there are the myths and lies he spun to justify the assault. It had missiles presumably nuclear tipped that could reach the US. That was a lie. It had jumpstarted its nuclear weapons development program. That was a lie. Iran posed a heightened threat to Israel security. That was a lie.
The clincher was his bald and puzzling claim that Iran was “waging war against civilization itself.” Whatever he meant by that. In any case, it was another lie.
One thing Trump said that has a ring of truth to it was his quip at the loss of American lives in the assault and his regret as he put it “Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. “
What’s almost laughable in this dreary little Trump charade is that Obama was accused in 2012 and 2013 of planning to attack Iran in order to supposedly shore up widespread public doubts about his political and especially military toughness. The charge against Obama was even labeled “playing the Iran card.” Who made the charge and warning, no one other than Trump.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is The Epstein “Distraction” (Amazon ebook and Middle Passage Press)
He hosts the weekly news and issues commentary radio show The Hutchinson Report Wednesdays 6 PM PST 9 PM EST at ktymgospel.net