Trump Completely Undermines His Own Government's Case for War With Iran

You know how everyone in the Trump administration, a bunch of hawks in Congress, and the nitwits on Fox News are trying to set the stage for war with Iran over the country’s alleged attacks on Norwegian- and Japanese-owned oil tankers, a dispute in which both Japan and Norway have been reluctant to involve themselves?

Well, seems like the big man himself doesn’t think it’s all that big of a deal. In an interview with Time released on Tuesday, Trump called the attacks his own administration is blaming Iran for “very minor.”

“I would certainly go [to war] over nuclear weapons,” Trump said when Time asked him what could push him to go to war with Iran. “And I would keep the other a question mark.”

The disconnect between Trump and his own administration on the question of an actual war is bewildering, horrifying, and kind of hilarious all at once. As Time notes, during the interview it was announced that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had authorized the deployment of a thousand troops to the Middle East for “defensive purposes.” And while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the government is “considering a full range of options” including military action, Trump told Time, when asked if he was considering military action against Iran, that he “wouldn’t say that. I can’t say that at all.”

Why does Trump suddenly have cold feet after blowing up the Iran nuclear deal and doing the Twitter equivalent of “What the fuck did you just say to me” to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani? Two reasons, according to Trump’s interview with Time: one, the Middle East just isn’t that important anymore now that we don’t get as much oil from there, and two, relations with Iran are…better than they were under Obama?

“If you look at the rhetoric now compared to the days when they were signing that agreement where it was always ‘death to America, death to America, we will destroy America, we will kill America,’ I’m not hearing that too much anymore,” Trump told Time. “And I don’t expect to.”

Does it make sense? No. Not at all. Will I take it over an even more disastrous war in the Middle East? Absolutely.