Trump’s penchant for embracing tyrants and stiff-arming allies and general bumbling idiocy on the international stage has calamitously degraded U.S. prestige and endangered and/or killed vulnerable populations in the regrettable position of depending on U.S. protection. That said, we’ve been lucky enough to avoid a major, organized and direct violent attack on the U.S. itself or its properties abroad. But our luck along those lines may be running out:
BAGHDAD — Hundreds of angry supporters of an Iranian-backed militia shouting “Death to America” attempted to storm the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, trapping diplomats inside in response to U.S. airstrikes that killed or wounded scores of militia fighters.
President Trump responded angrily Tuesday to the protesters’ action, charging that Iran was behind a deadly militia attack that led to the airstrikes and blaming Tehran for the embassy siege.
“Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many,” Trump tweeted from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”
The danger here is that Trump will ignore the American Iraq and Iran expertise, hawkish and dovish alike, that’s been developed over the past three decades because he “knows more than the generals” and listens to America’s adversaries instead. This is a complicated situation and he is not up to the task.
So is Mike Pompeo going to testify for 11 hours in front of Congress and have all of his communications scrutinized by the entire world over this Embassy siege in Bagdad?
— 🐝 Mark Joseph Kremer 🐝 #FBR (@MarkJKremer) December 31, 2019
Ya know, like Hillary Clinton and Benghazi.