Good news: “Due to the impact on resources from the longstanding government shutdown, Delta will temporarily suspend specialty services to members of Congress flying Delta”, a spokesperson for the airline said. Hooray. What took so long? And what about the other airlines?
Bad news (for President Trump): President Trump’s approval rating (36%) is at the lowest point of Trump 2.0 according to a new poll from Reuters/Ipsos. Two more signs of discontent: the GOP just lost the Florida state house seat in which Mar-a-Lago is located and this Saturday will see more than 3,000 No Kings rallies. The higher gas prices go, the lower Trump’s approval rating, and there’ll be no improvement until the war in Iran ends.
“We’ve won this. This war has been won”, President Trump declared from the Oval Office on Tuesday. He went further, claiming that the only people who want to keep the fighting going are the “fake news.”
But at the same time the President was declaring a “mission accomplished” of sorts, reports were breaking that the Pentagon is deploying a brigade from the storied 82nd Airborne — the Army’s “Immediate Response Force.” These are the paratroopers who can be anywhere on the globe in 18 hours. While the White House says no official decision has been made to put “boots on the ground” inside Iran, the signal is unmistakable. The President is keeping his options open—options that likely include a forced reopening of the Strait of Hormuz or a high-stakes mission to seize Iran’s stockpiled enriched uranium.
I am still doubting whether there was any “imminent threat” that necessitated the launching of war on February 28, but now feel aligned with David Boies’ recent WSJ essay (“What is the alternative? Obviously, few are prepared to say it is simply to permit religious madmen who swear “death to America” and back up their threats with terrorism to secure nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them.”)
The Administration’s objectives have been a moving target over the last four weeks. But one constant remains: denying Iran a nuclear weapon. Said Trump yesterday: “They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon, that’s number one. That’s number one, two, and three.”
If the U.S. leaves now without further concessions, the Administration CAN claim it “degraded” the missile capability, “wiped out” the Navy, and “changed” the Iranian leadership—even if the regime itself remains. Aside from the tragic, errant strike on that girls’ school in Minab, the military campaign has been a display of high-precision force.
But we haven’t seized the uranium. And the Strait of Hormuz remains a contested graveyard of shipping. Without securing the nuclear threat once and for all, does the U.S. risk a catastrophic loss of credibility by walking away now?
Today, I’ll discuss this with Seth Cropsey. He’s a former naval officer and former Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy. He just penned a provocative essay for the WSJ arguing that the Trump Administration is in a much larger war than it anticipated. Cropsey warns that if the U.S. fails to demonstrate the “unquestionable supremacy of American power,” the legacy won’t be victory—it will be “American collapse.” He writes: “Halting now… would be a cataclysmic mistake.”
Which brings us to today’s poll question at Smerconish.com:
Agree or Disagree: The war should not end until Iran’s enriched uranium is under U.S. or international control.
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