What did Donald Trump do today?
He tried to bully the United States' allies into joining a war he started without consulting them.
Yesterday, Trump floated the idea of a multinational armada to escort oil tankers through the Persian Gulf, thus protecting them from Iranian attacks and giving him a chance to declare victory and go home. There were a few immediately evident problems with this approach.
First, no navy of any size can completely protect oil tankers—which are essentially slow, floating bombs—from the very light armaments needed to destroy them. As one report puts it, "Even one Iranian soldier or militia member zipping across the narrow neck of the strait in a speedboat could fire a mobile missile right into a slow-moving supertanker, or plant a limpet mine on its hull."
What's more, Trump clearly hadn't run this idea by any of the nations he wanted to join when he announced it was what they'd be doing. But then, he didn't consult any of the United States' military allies in launching attacks in the first place—except for Israel, which appears to have been telling him what to do. Just last week, Trump was saying he didn't want other nations involved, making a show of refusing an alleged offer by the British government to send an aircraft carrier to the region. (That was eight days ago, when Trump was declaring the war "already won.")
In short, virtually every American military ally was opposed to these attacks in the first place, which are destabilizing the entire Middle East, crippling trade, and backing Iran even further into a corner that nuclear weapons may be its only way out of.
Today, having gotten no traction from his "suggestion," he once again threatened to destroy NATO. This is nothing new: Trump loathes NATO and has been actively fighting against it since he was elected with the help of Russia, the power it was meant to match.
On the subject of Russia, Trump also tried out a new line today: that the Putin regime should be allowed to help Iran target American forces, because the United States aided Ukraine in its war against Russia. "So it’s hard to say, ‘Gee what are you doing?’, when we’ve been doing the same thing," Trump said.
Why does this matter?
- The most powerful fighting force in the history of the world should be put in the hands of someone who is not completely incompetent.
- Making excuses for a hostile country targeting American troops is what a bought-and-paid-for traitor does.