President Donald Trump was blasted in a New York Times column for losing against Iraq.
“For now we seem to have averted an all-out shooting war between the United States and Iran,” Nicholas Kristof wrote. “Yet it’s not over. The world is more dangerous than it was a week ago, and President Trump’s exuberance suggests that he may have learned precisely the wrong lesson from his clash with Iran.”
Kristof said that Trump’s actions have resulted in him losing against Iran — seven different ways.
“Iran has cast off nuclear curbs so that it is now potentially within five months of having enough fuel for a nuclear warhead, down from almost 15 years when Trump took office,” he noted.
The second loss he cited was that, “United States forces may be pushed out of Iraq, allowing Suleimani to achieve in death one of his foremost goals in life.”
“American forces in Syria may be difficult to support without the military presence in Iraq, so some or all of them might pull out as well, another strategic victory for Iran,” he continued.
The fourth loss was, “The military campaign against ISIS is on hold, giving terrorists a chance to regroup.”
“Iran’s regime, which had been threatened by enormous protests at home and in Iraq, has been rescued by Trump’s actions. Iranians have rallied around the flag, and the Iraqi narrative has changed overnight from the bullying of Iranians to the bullying of Americans,” Kristof explained.
“Instead of bringing troops home, Trump has had to deploy more to the Middle East at huge cost. We may think we can’t afford universal pre-K, but we don’t blink at lavishing billions of dollars on these military deployments,” he said was the sixth loss.
The losses are so extensive that there are ramifications in North Korea.
“North Korea has gained leverage, because it knows that Trump has little appetite for two international security crises at the same time. Kim Jong-un has also surely absorbed the lesson that he must never give up his nuclear warheads, as Trump will strike countries that lack nuclear weapons while schmoozing with leaders who have them,” he noted.
Kristoff blasted the ultimate outcomes of Trump’s choices — and predicted there would likely be violence — potentially even at Trump Organization properties like Mar-a-Lago or Trump Tower.
“My best guess is that Iran will strike back hard in a way that leaves it some plausible deniability. Perhaps it’ll be a truck bomb at a diplomatic mission or Trump property, or perhaps rocket attacks on a military site by a proxy, or a cyberattack on an oil refinery or the power grid, or perhaps mines that damage oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz,” he warned.
“So much winning!” he wrote sarcastically.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised that Americans would get sick of winning.
“We’re going to win at so many levels. We’re going to win, win, win. You’re going to get so tired of winning,” Trump vowed. “You’re going to say, ‘Mr. President, please, we don’t want to win anymore — it’s too much!’”
Trump is running for re-election in 2020 with the slogan, “promises made, promises kept.”
