The greatest threat to President Trump’s reelection bid is another unpopular Middle East war. That’s not to say if we were to go to war with Iran following their ballistic missile attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq that he couldn’t still win, but ending this conflict without further major aggressive actions from either side would be a huge political victory. Currently, there are no reported casualties from Iran’s attack. Lord willing, it stays that way, in which case we have a clear path to peace.
This is the first major foreign relations test for @realDonaldTrump. His four most recent predecessors all failed theirs. The #IranAttacks can go in dozens of different directions.
Pray for discernment. Pray for strength. Pray that the right decisions are made.
— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) January 8, 2020
Taking the life of the most prolific terrorist of recent times, Qasem Soleimani, in exchange for structural damage to U.S. bases is a fair trade off. In fact, it would be a major feather in President Trump’s cap if he maintains his posture of strength while mitigating risks to our troops in the Middle East. It will be difficult for Democrats and mainstream media to paint a non-war scenario as anything but positive, but they’ll still do their best to spin everything the President does as negative, as they’re wont to do. I stand by me assessment from six months ago that war is not inevitable. Just as I noted back then, strikes were impossible to avoid based on their incessant prodding, and Soleimani’s death followed by Iran’s strikes today match my prediction.
Is war with Iran inevitable?
An attack by the west is the best thing Iran can hope to happen at this point. Their economy is crumbling. Their terror and militia proxies are hurting because of the dried up funds no longer coming in from Tehran. They can’t seem to sneak an oil tanker around Africa to Syria, one of the few places willing to disregard U.S. sanctions against Iran. So they’re left with either giving up their nuclear weapons ambitions altogether or provoking a war without being clearly seen as the aggressors.
Even though I do not believe war is inevitable, I don’t see a way to completely avoid military action. Iran won’t stop until they’ve forced an attack against them.
The Middle East has always been a volatile place. With Iran doing everything they can to appear like the victims to the international community while still seeming strong internally, strikes may be inevitable but war is not.
What if there is war, or even limited airstrikes traded by both sides? Does that mean President Trump won’t get reelected? No. He’s still in the driver’s seat and as long as U.S. troops aren’t marching towards Tehran, he can spin this mess as being not so bad. That being the case, it’s time for Americans to pray for discernment, strength, and peace.
Twitter user AGHamilton29 delivered a very important and accurate thread:
Iran has made a calculation about extent of public retaliation they believe US would tolerate without further escalation.
This will not be Iran's only action, but there needs to be a careful consideration of damage and whether further direct confrontation now is in US interest. https://t.co/OlL3pgvtd0
— (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) January 8, 2020
With that said, there is a strong case for taking the W and avoiding further direct confrontation at this time. We should reinforce our alliance with Iraq as there will now be a competition over who they blame and how they react (Iran for the attack or us for being the targets).
— (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) January 8, 2020
All of these points are spot-on. Iran’s attack and their follow-up statement saying this will be their only attack as long as there’s no counter-strike tells us they aren’t itching for war. It’s also accurate that they will be doing other things to harm us. We can expect cyberattacks, limited aggressive moves by their proxies, and a major PR scheme flaming anti-American and anti-Trump rhetoric internationally and at home. They may be planning terrorist attacks in the United States that they can blame on unaffiliated “supporters.” But the most important part of this thread is his advice to the President: Take the “W.”
President Trump has an opportunity. He stared them down and then took a shot from them. If it did no real harm and he remains composed, allowing this to deescalate, he will be the statesman his four most recent predecessors were not.
