To Donald Trump, anyone, any entity, that doesn’t agree with him is a terrorist, foreign or domestic. Maduro. Antifa. Renee Good. Alex Pretti. Ecuador. Iran. El Mencho. Congressional Democrats. Any entity but Putin.
He’s right about Iran. Under Islamic Republic leadership Iran sponsored terrorism. It cultivated and exported attacks within its borders and across the Middle East, South America, Europe and the United States.
The hope is that under whatever new leadership emerges in Iran the world will be a safer place. That may be true when it pertains to Iran’s nuclear missile ambitions. But terror has many facets. State sponsored or by lone actors. Bombings. Attacks by guns, swords and knives. Chemical warfare. Technology disruptions.
No doubt, millions among Iran’s population adhered to the extreme vision of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei so it will be difficult, to say the least, to expect new leadership to be conciliatory towards Trump’s vision of a pliant Iran. Anyone Trump finds acceptable will automatically be suspect to a vast segment of Iran’s 90 million residents. Iran will be a shell of itself but still committed to extreme Islamic values.
Trump does not want an “endless war” with American troops occupying Iran. But he is no student of history if he believes Iran can self-police its conversion to a non-belligerent trusted state. Allied troops were needed for years on the ground to rehabilitate Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan after World War II.
Trump is finding out it is a lot easier to give the order to shoot than to deal with the aftermath of his carnage. Without boots on the ground to prop up a more moderate government that has no guarantee of enduring a la our experiences in South Vietnam and Afghanistan, Trump merely has given Israel more security in the short term. A worthy benefit, but one that may well leave America vulnerable because our ordinance reserves may be severely depleted.
We really should be arming Ukraine with the firepower to thwart Russia’s illegal land grab. Putin has spun Trump around like a marionette on a string. Trump can easily display American military might in Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador and Iran, but he dares not stare down Putin by appropriately arming Ukraine.
An unchecked Russia is a true and real terror to Europe and the United States.
