There was something about that didnt add up.
Several things, actually.
But what struck me immediately was his low-energy delivery. He backed into it, first talking about the Artemis moon mission and then the oil were seizing from Venezuela. After that he was just reading words off the prompter.
No one could argue with the presidents core message. Iran is the worlds leading terror state. Something should have been done during its 47-year history of violence and murderous proxies like Hamas. Iran can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. The dictators killed 45,000 of their own people (though Trump played this down when he was trying to negotiate a deal).
But the 19-minute speech was a jumble of contradictions. Trump kept saying weve won, weve decimated Irans military, which is true. And yet he said the U.S. will intensify its for the next two to three weeks, targeting Tehrans energy facilities.Â
Why is that necessary, if America has already won? And will it really last less than a month?
It was clear heading into the speech that Trump knows how unpopular the war is. He knows that soaring gas prices are hurting him at home. He knows he is dropping like a rock with young men who bought his no-foreign-wars rhetoric.
He knows â and this is critical â the stock market has tanked since U.S. and Israeli on the last day of February. Trump is extremely sensitive to the market, as we saw when the Dow hit 50,000, and that often spurs him into action.
Having boxed himself into a corner with an Iranian regime that refuses to seriously negotiate, the public expectation was that he would declare victory and get out. But that didnt happen. Instead, Trump declared hell be bombing Iran back to the “Stone Ages.”
What about the presidents own goals?
He said the wars goal was never regime change. But he spoke about regime change the morning after the initial attack. In any event, Trump now claims its been achieved because several levels of leadership, starting with , have been killed,Â
But the new sheriff in town, the Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Ghalibaf, lashed out yesterday.
“When it comes to defending our homeland,” he said in a posting, “each and every one of us will become a soldier of this country. If you look askance at our mothers house ⦠youre up against the whole family, all of us. Armed, ready, and standing. Come on in, were waiting.”
So much for regime change.
Again and again, Trump said the war could not end until Iran stopped blockading a fifth of the worlds oil traffic at the Strait of Hormuz. But in , he washed his hands of the matter. We dont rely on the strait, so who cares? It will “open up naturally,” on its own.
The president then scolded our onetime European allies, saying they should and “just take” Hormuzâas if it were that easy.
As for Trumps declaration that our country is now “free of the specter of nuclear blackmail,” Iran still has nearly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uraniumâand further enrichment could lead to a nuclear weapon.
In a CNN poll released just before the speech, 66 percent of those surveyed said they strongly or somewhat disapprove of the decision to attack Iran, a 7-point jump since the conflict began.
Most network pundits criticized the address as a rehash of things that Trump has said before.
“There was nothing new in that speech,” said ABCs Jonathan Karl, adding: “Not a lot of optimism.”
His colleague Martha Raddatz: “It added to the confusion of why we are there.”Â
European leaders felt blindsided by the war. “When were serious,” said French President , “we dont say the opposite of what we said the day before every day, and maybe one shouldnt speak every day,”
Austria and Switzerland yesterday joined Italy, Spain and France in banning U.S. warplanes headed for Iran from their skies. They dont want any part of this war. Britains prime mini
