https://www.youtube.com/watch?
And:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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Iranian options not good according to Hanson. (See 1 and 1a below.)
And:
You might find this source of interest. (See 1b below.)
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Mitch might look like a turtle but he outplayed Pelosi and the rabbit won. He always held the upper hand because of the Constitution's dicta. The question was, did he have the guts to play it? (See 2 below.)
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We all know, by now, Trump often stretches the truth but we also have learned he often is onto something and thus, his comment about unlawful voter registrations, which the press and Democrats mocked, has proven to be factual. (See 3 below.)
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Progressive Democrats have always had a somewhat yellow streak running down their fragile anatomy. From time to time the shade lightens but of late it has resurfaced with a darkened vengeance.
They have gone from open borders to sanctuary cities to pandering to illegal immigration and now would seemingly turn the other cheek no matter what the terrorist provocation.
Kim highlights their return to appeasement as the basis of their foreign policy. (See 4 and 4a below.)
Finally:
This is information that should help deniers to recant but they won't because denial is their only defense to their self-imposed cupidity. (See 4b below.)
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Dick
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1) Iran's Options in Showdown With America Are All Bad
By Victor Davis Hanson
After losing its top strategist, military commander and arch-terrorist, Qassem Suleimani, the Iranian theocracy is weighing responses.
One, Iran can quiet down and cease military provocations.
After attacking tankers off its coast, destroying an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, shooting down a U.S. drone and being responsible for the killing and wounding of Americans in Iraq, Iran could now keep quiet.
It might accept that its strategy of escalation has failed to lead to any quantifiable advantage. Trump did not prove a passive “Twitter tiger,” as his critics mocked. Instead, he upped the stakes to Iran’s disadvantage and existential danger.
The chances, however, for such a logical and passive readjustment by Iran are nil.
Iran believes that Trump’s beefed-up sanctions have all but destroyed its economy and could now extend to secondary boycotts of nations trading with Iran. U.S. sanctions have also squeezed Iranian expeditionary efforts to forge a permanent hegemony and a Shiite crescent extending to the Mediterranean.
If unchecked, American economic pressure could eventually lead to a popular rebellion that would topple the theocracy. In sum, a return to the status quo is unlikely.
Two, Iran can agree to re-enter talks about its nuclear program and offer a few concessions.
Iran could concede that the prior agreement was designed to bank Iranian cash and nuclear expertise that would eventually lead to the country developing nuclear weaponry after a period of feigned good behavior.
Yet a return to direct negotiations with Washington is also unlikely, especially since Iran once enjoyed a lopsided gift from the United States. Renegotiating anything less would be too humiliating for the revolutionary regime to endure.
Three, Iran can escalate its military operations and its use of terrorist surrogates. The death of Suleimani is Iran’s most grievous setback in decades, and Iran seeks vengeance.
The theocracy will view his death not just in terms of a strategic loss, but as a humiliation that cannot stand. Governments elsewhere in the Middle East are gloating over Suleimani’s killing, and especially over the thought of Iran’s inability to do much about it.
In reaction, Iran could strike American bases and allies in the region. The possibilities are endless. It might send more drones and missiles against other nations’ refineries. Hezbollah could shower Israeli cities with missiles. Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz in hopes of seeing the rest of the world suffer as it has.
Iran could also unleash its terrorist appendages to stage attacks on American and Israeli assets throughout Europe and the U.S., including military bases, airliners and soft civilian targets.
Yet this choice is also unlikely.
The U.S. would not have to invade Iran to end it as a modern state. A strike against the U.S. or its overseas military installations would result in a devastating response. The theocracy knows that in hours, U.S. air power could take out all of Iran’s oil refineries, power stations and military bases while suffering few if any causalities.
Given U.S. oil independence and the global adjustments to existing sanctions on Iranian oil, the near-permanent loss of Iran’s oil would not greatly damage the world economy.
Iran will bluster and threaten, but waging an all-out war with the U.S. would be suicidal, and Iran knows it.
Four, Iran can continue its periodic attacks on U.S. allies and on troops and contractors in the region.
Constant provocation is a not a good alternative, but it’s probably seen as preferable to the other poor choices. The strategic aim in such endless tit-for-tat would be to wear down the patience of the U.S. public in an election year.
Given the quick criticism of Suleimani’s killing from Trump’s progressive domestic opponents, and given the Obama administration’s past appeasement in response to Iranian provocations, Tehran might conclude that a hit-and-pause strategy is preferable.
It could incite Trump’s political opponents to brand him a warmonger who acted illegally by “assassinating” Suleimani.
Iran’s hope would be that Trump would lose the support of the antiwar members of his base in key swing states.
If such periodic attacks continued until Election Day, Iran might hope for a President Elizabeth Warren or President Bernie Sanders. Either one would likely resurrect the flawed Iran deal and ignore Iranian aggression in Syria and Iraq.
Iran’s goal might be something like re-creating the melodrama of the 1979-1981 hostage crisis, Saddam Hussein’s rope-a-dope strategy, or Bill Clinton’s three-month bombing campaign in Yugoslavia. Tehran hopes for American strategic ossification that could prove politically toxic.
But that scenario, too, is unlikely. As long as Trump replies with air power disproportionate to any Iranian attacks, he, not Tehran, governs the tempo of the confrontation.
Iran created the current crisis. It has choices, but for now they are all bad.
1a)
1b )Good morning, today is January 10th, 2020, and this is your “World In 2 Minutes” from DailyChatter.
Judicial Watch announced it is continuing its efforts to force states and counties across the nation to comply with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), by sending notice-of-violation letters to 19 large counties in five states that it intends to sue unless the jurisdictions take steps to comply with the law and remove ineligible voter registrations within 90 days. Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act requires jurisdictions to take reasonable efforts to remove ineligible registrations from its rolls.
1a)
A bad day for Middle East terrorists
Iran is on the ropes financially, politically and militarily. While the country is well-armed, there are limits to how much more credibility and assets Khamenei is willing to throw into battle against the US and Israel – two equally determined and better-armed rivals.
The death-by-missile of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Iraq on Friday certainly gave Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei something to think about.
He should think hard. Iran’s response over the coming months to this act of US retribution for numerous acts of Iranian aggression could prove disastrous to the Islamic Republic.
Iran is already reeling from crippling US-instigated economic sanctions, anti-government demonstrations turned deadly and debilitating Israeli military attacks.
Soleimani’s timely and ignoble death should focus the Iranian kingpin’s attention as never before. If it doesn’t – if he attempts serious retaliation – Iran will deserve the further decimation it receives at the hands of the United States and our equally indignant Middle East allies.
Khamenei should already have gotten the message that Iran’s terrorist brand of imperialism is not welcome in the Middle East, especially after some 200 strikes, reportedly by Israel, on Iranian facilities in Syria in recent years and, just last August, on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Let’s not forget that tiny Israel also broke into a nuclear-weapons warehouse smack in the center of Iran’s capital, Tehran, and removed thousands of pages of evidence of Iran’s cheating on the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement.
Despite this humiliation, the ayatollah possesses supreme arrogance and a misplaced sense of invincibility. Following an attack by Iranian-led Shi’ite militias on the US Embassy in Baghdad last week, Khamenei mocked the Americans, saying, "You can’t do anything."
Soleimani’s demise a few days later proved his boss’s assessment embarrassingly false.
Nonetheless, Iran has been singularly persistent and successful in its efforts to spread violent jihad throughout the Middle East, led primarily by none other than Qassem Soleimani.
- Hezbollah, supervised by Soleimani, is a poster child for proxy militias, having effectively taken over governance and military operations in its host country on behalf of Iran.
- Houthi rebels in Yemen, also supported by Iran, threaten to take over that country.
- Syria’s President Bashar Assad is inextricably beholden to Iran, since Soleimani helped him quell a long, devastating civil war against Islamic State and other rebel armies.
- In Baghdad, where Soleimani was killed, Iranian surrogates are a major controlling force in Iraq’s government and military forces.
- Leaders of the Palestinian terror group Hamas in Gaza, also beneficiaries of Iranian financial support, are openly mourning Soleimani’s death.
In short, few terrorists have had more American (or Arab) blood on their hands than Soleimani, and few have deserved such an ignominious fate more than he.
In addition to Soleimani directing his armies of foreign puppets in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Gaza, Iran has also launched missile assaults on Saudi Arabia’s key oil refinery, attacked and harassed cargo ships in the Persian Gulf and shot down a US drone over the Strait of Hormuz.
These recent acts, of course, supplement decades of attacks on US forces by Iranians or militias under their control in which hundreds of Americans were killed in Iraq.
While Soleimani’s loss is a major setback to Iran, among many such lately, the Islamic Republic is still powerful and determined. Its leaders are guided by a religious fervor that is not likely to be much tempered by rational calculations.
In fact, statements coming from Iran’s leadership reflect continued belligerence. Its information minister called President Donald Trump "a terrorist in a suit" – ironic, given Iran’s informal mantle as the greatest state sponsor of global terrorism. A Hezbollah spokesperson called for the targeting of US military assets.
In any case, both the US and Israeli militaries are on high alert, expecting Iranian retaliation at some level over the coming months.
When Iran does seek its revenge against either the United States or Israel, we can be sure that they will respond with devastating hammer-blows, not half measures.
Iran is on the ropes – financially, politically (don’t forget nationwide popular protests in recent months) and militarily. While the country is well-armed, there are surely limits to how much more credibility and assets Khamenei and Co. are willing to throw into battle against the United States and Israel – two equally determined and better-armed rivlas.
If further provoked, both the United States and Israel have every reason and right to act firmly against Iran’s bellicose and imperialistic terror regime. We should support such countermeasures, and the US Congress should support them.
After all, Iran has declared itself our enemy. Its chants of "Death to America!" (often led by Khamenei) make that indisputable.
If Iran attempts to double down with further belligerence in the region, especially against the United States or our other allies, including Israel, there should be no discussion of "proportional" response. Iran must now be set back definitively.
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
NEED TO KNOW
TAIWAN
Amid Chaos, a Shoo-in
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is almost sure to win re-election on January 11.
That’s one of the few certainties she can depend on.
The political stars aligned for Tsai. At the same time she and her Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, have been stalwartly resisting China’s efforts to undermine Taiwan’s independence, China’s crackdown on Hong Kong has given her constituents an example of why they might not want the central government in Beijing to rule their island, the Financial Times explained.
While China claims that Taiwan is a breakaway province, the country has never been under Communist control.
“Democracy and authoritarianism cannot coexist within the same country,” Tsai said in her New Year’s Day speech, according to CNBC. “Hong Kong’s people have shown us that ‘one country, two systems’ is absolutely not viable.”
The island’s economy is doing OK, too, added GlobalVoices. Taiwanese companies are even taking advantage of the trade war between the US and China. But rising costs in the country’s cities are outstripping wages, squeezing younger people especially.
While the incumbent’s popularity has surged, her China-friendly opponent, Han Kuo-yu, has cratered in the polls. Voters in the city of Kaohsiung, where Han is mayor, have amassed 300,000 signatures to recall him from that position, reported the South China Morning Post.
Han failed to identify China as Taiwan’s main military rival during an interview on a late-night talk show, for example, Bloomberg reported. His response was a flop in a country that purchases American fighter jets to stop potential Chinese invasions.
The imbalance ironically comes after China has spent significant treasure and political capital to influence Taiwanese politics, noted Kharis Templeman in a Brookings Institution report. “If Tsai and the DPP remain in power after the 2020 elections, as now appears increasingly likely, this strategy will not have delivered on its objectives, and it will present Beijing with a hard choice: double down, recalibrate, or fundamentally reassess its Taiwan policy,” wrote Templeman.
Tsai appears to expect a doubling down.
Taiwanese lawmakers recently enacted an “anti-infiltration act” designed to limit China’s political influence, wrote the Diplomat in a story that included examples of how Chinese officials shaped local news coverage. “We passed the bill to prevent China, which is Taiwan’s only threat, from using its sharp power and its capital to pollute, manipulate or sabotage Taiwan’s democratic activities,” DPP lawmaker Wang Ting-yu told France 24.
Tsai might win her election fight, but it’s not the only battle before her.
WANT TO KNOW
INDIA
A “Guided Tour”
Several foreign diplomats visited India-administered Kashmir on Thursday for the first time since the Indian government stripped the Muslim-majority region of its special status in August, Al Jazeera reported.
The visit is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s diplomatic outreach program in response to criticism of his government for not allowing foreign envoys to assess the situation in the region.
India invited more than a dozen diplomats, including those from the United States. However, several envoys from the European Union declined the invitation after they were refused permission to travel independently.
Opposition parties and Kashmiris called the visit a “guided tour” and criticized Modi’s government for trying to portray normalcy in Kashmir.
Analyst Sushobha Barve told Al Jazeera that the visit was meant to assure US officials that there are no human rights violations in Kashmir.
“A US Congress resolution on Kashmir is expected anytime soon, so the Indian government is trying to reach out to them and maintain how the abrogation of special status has restored normalcy in Kashmir,” he said.
Since its autonomy was stripped, internet services in Kashmir have been shut down for more than five months. The region’s top political leaders still remain in detention.
LIBYA
Let’s Talk
Libya’s United Nations-supported government welcomed Russian and Turkish calls for a ceasefire in the ongoing civil war that has plagued the country since April, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.
The Tripoli-based government in the west expressed support for ending the conflict, but their rivals in the east have yet to follow suit.
Libya is currently governed by dueling authorities in the east and the west. The east-based government is led by the forces of former general Khalifa Hifter, and supported by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia.
The west government, meanwhile, receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.
Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin called for a Jan. 12 ceasefire between Libya’s warring factions. They did not specify the conditions of the truce.
Their joint statement comes a week after Turkey’s parliament voted to send forces into Libya to counter Russia’s support for Hifter.
Analysts believe that the proposed ceasefire could mean that Turkey and Russia will scale down their involvement in the conflict to avoid further escalation.
UKRAINE
Whodunnit?
Ukrainian investigators arrived Thursday in Iran to investigate whether the deadly crash of a Ukraine-bound passenger plane in Iran was caused by a missile or terrorist attack, the Financial Times reported.
On Wednesday, a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 crashed near Tehran minutes after take-off, killing all 176 people on board.
The incident occurred hours after Iran launched missile strikes against US forces in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of top military general Qassim Soleimani by a US drone strike last week.
Iranian officials initially claimed that the plane crashed because of a “technical failure following a fire” on the flight, and strongly rejected speculation that its forces attacked the plane by accident.
Ukraine investigators, meanwhile, are searching for any missile debris, possibly from a Russian-made Tor anti-aircraft missile, after seeing pictures of alleged fragments online.
The team also includes members of the Dutch-led investigation team that looked into the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 by a Russian-made missile over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
DISCOVERIES
Planetary Rumble
Planet Earth is composed of dozens of tectonic plates that constantly move around to position themselves – and end up causing earthquakes in the process.
Mars doesn’t have plate tectonics, yet scientists at NASA were able to record several seismic rumbles within the red planet, National Geographic recently reported.
Last year, NASA’s InSight lander robot, for the first time, recorded two “marsquakes” between magnitudes 3 and 4 in area known as Cerberus Fossae, nearly 1,000 miles from the craft’s landing zone.
The quakes were pretty small by Earth’s standards, but they are the largest seismic activities recorded on Mars.
Scientists remain unclear as to what exactly is causing the planetary rumble.
After Mars was formed, the molten rock surface of the planet cooled down to form a static crust round a rocky inner mantle, yet scientists aren’t sure about the current state of the planet’s interior.
They suspect that pockets of magma might still remain below the crust and the marsquakes are formed due to the rocky planet’s ongoing cooling and contraction.
The NASA team, however, has declined to comment until their results are published in a peer-reviewed journal, but other scientists are pretty excited at the prospect of Mars’s seismic activity.
“Mars has just become a bit more alive to us with these data,” said planetary geologist Paul Byrne, who wasn’t involved in the study.
ANNUAL REPORT
Dear DailyChatter Subscriber,
2019 was another outstanding year of growth.
Total subscribers to DailyChatter increased a remarkable 70%. Paid subscribers jumped 75% while the free subscriptions we provide to college and university students also increased dramatically, by 67%.
Nearly 15,000 people across the United States and internationally now receive DailyChatter each weekday morning. We’re especially proud of the growth of our university public service initiative. 75 leading colleges and universities in 32 states and 2 other nations are now partnered with us, and 6500 students and faculty receive our newsletter. Student engagement is exceptionally high and our annual student survey in the spring showed that 73% open DailyChatter three or more times a week and 37% open every day. Two thirds said the newsletter significantly increased their knowledge of the world.
In other important news, we added maps this year to the newsletter’s lead story and the response from you was an overwhelming vote of approval. We hope to expand the map feature to all our stories in 2020.
Also coming in the new year is DailyChatter’s appearance in Apple News and Apple’s paid subscription service, Apple News +. One of the greatest challenges we’ve faced since launching is finding ways to gain exposure in front of large numbers of people, so we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to be sampled by the tens of millions of people around the world who have Apple News on their iPhone or other Apple device. To protect our paid subscribers, only a small amount of our content will appear in the free Apple News while the full newsletter will appear in the paid subscription Apple News+.
As many of you may know, journalism continues to face enormous financial challenges. DailyChatter’s revenue is growing and we operate with tremendous efficiency. But we still have a few miles to travel before we reach full sustainability. On this journey, we’re grateful to the Knight Foundation for their very important financial support of our university program the past two years – and we are grateful to all our subscribers for your loyalty.
I’m also blessed with two wonderful partners, Alex Jones and Keith Goggin, who along with me continue to support DailyChatter’s operating deficit. Each of us believes deeply in the importance of helping people know the world better and that’s never been more important than it is today.
From all of us at DailyChatter, our very best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year.
Sincerely, Phil Balboni, CEO, Founder and Co-Executive Editor
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2) How McConnell Outplayed Pelosi
Column: The Republican leader unified his caucus by relying on precedent
Mitch McConnell was clear when he addressed the Senate December 18: Any impeachment trial of President Trump would follow the precedent established by the trial of President Clinton 20 years ago.
Clinton's trial was divided into pieces. The Senate agreed unanimously to begin with a briefing, opening arguments, questions from senators, and a vote to dismiss. Whether to hear witnesses or introduce additional evidence were questions decided later. "That was the unanimous bipartisan precedent from 1999," McConnell said. "Put first things first, lay the bipartisan groundwork, and leave mid-trial questions to the middle of the trial."
The arrangement satisfied Chuck Schumer back when he was a recently elected junior senator from New York. Funny how times change. Now Senate minority leader, and looking to damage Republicans in a presidential election year, Schumer demanded that McConnell call witnesses and ask for additional documents at the outset of the proceedings. Pelosi followed his cues. After the House impeached Trump on December 18, she said she wouldn't transmit the articles of impeachment until McConnell gave in to Schumer's demands.
McConnell refused. He continued to point to the (relative) bipartisanship of the Clinton era. "The Senate said, 100 to nothing, that was good enough for President Clinton," he said on January 6. "So it ought to be good enough for President Trump. Fair is fair." The following day, McConnell ridiculed the idea that Pelosi had "leverage" over the Senate: "Apparently this is their proposition: If the Senate does not agree to break with our own unanimous bipartisan precedent from 1999, and agree to let Speaker Pelosi hand-design a different procedure for this Senate trial, then they might never dump this mess in our lap." Fine with him. The Senate has plenty of other things to do.
The reliance on precedent is one of McConnell's most effective strategies. In 2016 he invoked the "Biden rule" to prevent confirmation hearings for Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, until after the election. The following spring, when Senate Republicans voted to end the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, McConnell noted that former majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, had done the same for lower-court nominees in 2013.
Pelosi and Schumer want to up the pressure on Republican senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney. The goal: drive them to break from McConnell. What the Democrats failed to recognize is that beginning a trial is a separate issue from calling witnesses. And no Republican is particularly interested in holding the trial. Pelosi's leverage was nonexistent. The spin that she and Schumer were shining a light on a corrupt process? Silliness. By January 7, McConnell had secured the backing of the GOP conference. Republicans were unified.
Pelosi's gambit fell apart. Democratic senators, from Dianne Feinstein to Doug Jones, said it was time for the trial to begin. Several Democratic congressmen agreed. The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith, said it was "time to send the impeachment to the Senate." Smith is one of Pelosi's favorites—or at least he was before he said that. Within hours, an abashed Smith was on Twitter, walking back his comments.
"I will turn them over when I'm ready, and that will probably be soon," Pelosi said at her January 9 press conference. "I know exactly when" to appoint impeachment managers, she said earlier that day. She has a funny way of showing it.
The chances that the House would strong arm the Senate into adopting the preferences of Schumer were always low. They shrank to zero once Democrats and media personalities began questioning Pelosi's tactics. The comparison would horrify her, but Pelosi's move reminded me of the Tea Party's plan to force a Democratic Senate to repeal Obamacare through House appropriations bills. You can shut down the government, or prolong an impeachment, only for so long. Soon you will take the blame.
McConnell's victory carries risks. It guarantees that there will be a trial. And a trial is an unpredictable entity. Any senator can offer a motion. How involved Chief Justice John Roberts will want to be is unknown. Party unity might help the Democrats more than Republicans. Once the trial begins, if three GOP senators vote with a unified Democratic conference on a given motion, Schumer will have his way. McConnell's challenge: keep Republicans together to limit the scope and duration of the proceedings.
Pelosi is an example of what not to do. Since announcing the impeachment inquiry in September, she has seen independents turn against it, Trump's numbers rise, a House Democrat switch parties, and several Democrats join Republicans to vote against one or both of the articles of impeachment. Now her friends and lieutenants question her judgment in public. Pelosi's reputation as a "master strategist" is hype. It's been reported that she got the idea for withholding the articles from an interview with John Dean on CNN. Dean once gave legal advice to Richard Nixon. And look what happened to him.
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3) Judicial Watch Finds Millions of ‘Extra’ Registrants on Voting Rolls – Warns CA, PA, NC, CO, VA to Clean Up Voting Rolls or Face a Federal Lawsuit
Judicial Watch announced it is continuing its efforts to force states and counties across the nation to comply with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), by sending notice-of-violation letters to 19 large counties in five states that it intends to sue unless the jurisdictions take steps to comply with the law and remove ineligible voter registrations within 90 days. Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act requires jurisdictions to take reasonable efforts to remove ineligible registrations from its rolls.
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4) There’s No Peace From the Doves
Christmas is over, yet the ghosts of dovish presidential candidates past haunt the Democratic primaries. Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry—these are not kindly, benign spirits; they bring great risks for Democrats in November.
4) There’s No Peace From the Doves
Democrats show they’ve lurched left in foreign as well as domestic policy.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Christmas is over, yet the ghosts of dovish presidential candidates past haunt the Democratic primaries. Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry—these are not kindly, benign spirits; they bring great risks for Democrats in November.
The primary contest to date has served mainly to highlight how far left Democrats have lurched on domestic policy in the few years since Barack Obama. The Iran conflict has now exposed a similarly dramatic shift in foreign policy. Where progressives these days lead, even the “moderate” Joe Biden follows.
The targeted killing of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani led the progressive moment to go full flower child. Thanks to desultory debate moderators, Americans until now had little idea how Democratic aspirants would specifically respond to terrorism or other provocations. The Soleimani moment proved clarifying.
Voters now know that a President Bernie Sanders would not take action against Iran or other rogue regimes, no matter how many red lines they cross. Mr. Sanders will take no step that might bring us anywhere closer to “another disastrous war” or cost “more dollars and more deaths.” A President Elizabeth Warren would similarly offer a pass to leaders of U.S.-designated terrorist groups, at least if they have an official title. The Trump strike, she said, amounted to the “assassination” of “a government official, a high-ranking military official.”
The House Progressive Caucus in a Thursday press conference laid out additional aspects of the left’s foreign-policy worldview. Member after member took to the podium to demand legislation that would hem all presidents in from further acts of deterrence. Rep. Ilhan Omar explained that progressives don’t oppose only military force; they also oppose “crippling sanctions,” which “starve the innocent people of Iran.”
Mr. Obama’s foreign policy was feckless, but it wasn’t this. Progressives are blanking out the Obama history of sanctions and his aggressive use of clandestine drone attacks (more than 500) in places ranging from Iraq to Pakistan to Syria. In 2012 Mr. Obama blunted Mitt Romney’s attempts to paint him as a typical Democratic naïf by bragging about drones, the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and the U.S. attacks on al Qaeda leadership.
Vice President Biden was central to that 2012 message, with his rallying cry that Mr. Obama’s “spine of steel” meant that “Osama Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” The Obama-Biden foreign policy was misguided, but at least it was cognizant of threats to the U.S. Now the Democratic front-runner chasing progressive votes, Mr. Biden can’t even summon the spine to congratulate Mr. Trump on killing a terrorist. He called the strike a “debacle” that “exploded geopolitics in the region and put the United States and Iran on a collision course.” Mr. Biden’s only promise was to double down on the flawed Obama diplomacy that provided Iran with cash for its campaign of Mideast destabilization.
Mr. Biden is under pressure to pander further to the pacifists. Mr. Sanders in particular has seized on Iran to berate Mr. Biden for his 2002 Senate vote to invade Iraq. Ms. Warren and Pete Buttigieg are similarly suggesting that disqualifies Mr. Biden. The three progressives will surely use next week’s Democratic debate to hammer on Mr. Biden’s foreign-policy “judgment.” Perhaps the former vice president will see it as his opportunity to call out his opponents’ own dangerous positions. But if history is any guide, it’s likelier his desire to hit Mr. Trump and keep the liberal base on board will lead him to further distance himself from the use of American force.
Voters are getting a Democratic primary field that is the weakest on foreign policy in decades. True, Americans lack interest in sustained military conflict, a tendency even Mr. Trump has exploited with his promises to bring troops home. And foreign policy is rarely a top voter concern. At the same time, history and polls show that voters factor high into their decisions a desire for a candidate that will keep the U.S. safe.
Democrats are betting Mr. Trump stumbles into an Iran war. Iran still has the potential to sow chaos between now and November, and it may do so purely to make things tougher for the incumbent. But if the end result of this episode is the elimination of a bloodthirsty regional puppetmaster and weakening of the most dangerous player in the region, Democrats lose their “disaster” talking points.
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