Why Trump invoked regime change in attacking Iran, and the media must learn from past mistakes
Well, so much for all the weekend punditry that was to follow Donald Trump's State of the Union.
And the expert analysis of the tariff confusion caused by the president's loss in the Supreme Court? That's on hold too.
When Trump unleashed the bombing barrage against Iran, joined by Israeli forces, he did more than take a giant, risky step against the world's leading sponsor of terrorism.
The attacks targeted Iran’s supreme leader, and succeeded in killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a remarkable military achievement.
Behind such pinpoint targeting, Trump uttered a crucial phrase: regime change.
Those words have resonance because they echo George W. Bush’s rhetoric from two decades ago. Bush's announced goal was to topple Saddam Hussein – rather than stopping short, as his father had done – albeit on fictional claims of weapons of mass destruction. And that drive was aided by rally-round-the-flag, almost fawning media coverage.
I feel strongly about this because while at the Washington Post, I did a lengthy report in which the paper’s leaders admitted they too eagerly joined the march to war and downplayed contrary evidence. "I think I was part of the groupthink," Bob Woodward told me.
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So Trump is no longer merely trying to stop Iran's nuclear program, which he claimed to have done nine months ago with that surprise attack on Tehran's underground nuclear sites.
Now the president is saying he wants Iranians to topple the latest in a long line of theocratic authoritarians who rule that country with an iron fist – as if they could make that happen on their own.
Not that I have the slightest sympathy for these awful ayatollahs. Trump called Khamenei "one of the most evil people in History."
Many Trump supporters were drawn to his America First language, which they viewed as an end to faraway wars. Instead, they've gotten the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, whose Venezuela is about a third the size of Iran. And the threats, finally dropped, to take over Greenland. Plus, now the second shelling of Iran.
No wonder some of his conservative allies are opposing these military strikes. They want federal money spent here, not in a volatile region driven by centuries of ethnic hatred.
The Iranian retaliation – against Israel and U.S. bases in several nearby Arab countries – was both immediate and predictable. So now we find ourselves in a regional war.
While the butchery of Khamenei sealed his fate, the targeted assassination of another head of state certainly fuels critics who see the U.S. acting as the Great Satan. At the same time, most neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia, want nothing to do Iran or its proxies such as Hamas.
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On the question of why the military escalation was launched now, some of Trump’s explanations seemed based on disputed or exaggerated evidence, given that Tehran is not close to completing a bomb. He may have decided the regime is too weak to survive the moment.
But the Iranian hardliners who flatly refused to drop their nuclear ambitions left Trump little choice.
This is the same gang of dictators that murdered thousands of protesters in the streets. Trump kept claiming the practice had stopped, but that wasn’t true, except for public hangings. It's all too reminiscent of the Beijing crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Let's go back even further. What civilized country would hold 52 diplomats hostage for more than a year, to pressure America to turn over an ailing Shah Reza Pahlavi? I guess the key word is civilized.
The 444-day ordeal ended Jimmy Carter’s presidency, but also served notice that not even American embassies were safe.
Chuck Schumer wants to push ahead with invoking the War Powers Act, since the Constitution gives that authority to Congress. It’s kinda late for that.
Politically speaking, who could vote to undermine the administration now that our pilots are risking their lives in the assault on Iran?
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Come on, in the modern age, presidents wage war and Congress holds hearings. Whether it was JFK and Cuba, Ronald Reagan and Grenada, George H. W. Bush and Panama, Bill Clinton and Kosovo or many others, the commander-in-chief gives the orders.
But war also brings casualties, as Trump rightly pointed out.
Before the invasion of Iraq, Bush's CIA chief said there was a "slam-dunk" case that Saddam had illegal weapons. As the media get swept up in the coverage of Trump’s war in Iran, they might display the kind of skepticism that was sorely missing during that last Middle East showdown.