Per Trumps statement.
This all went about as smoothly as I had hoped. The U.S were warned, it was a domestic save face campaign. They could have done great damage.
They lose their #2, and leading terror sponsor. USA need not go to war. The EU, China, Russia must do their part as well. Trump sends a strong message while not costing himself politically and the U.S militarily and financially.
Winning.
Why the media got Iran wrong
Iran's attack last night on 2 American bases in Iraq proved once again Iran has the military capabilities and acumen of Paraguay. The retaliation showed the genius of President Donald John Trump's killing of the terrorist General.
Peter Beinart, a journalism professor at the City University of New York, set the template for media coverage.
"Over the past 18 months, Donald Trump has picked a fight with Iran that he won’t end and can’t win. That fight has had horrifying consequences for the Iranian people, led Tehran to restart its nuclear program, and now left parts of the American embassy compound in Baghdad in flames. In the days and weeks to come, Trump’s policy will likely lead either to war or to additional American humiliation, or both."
Totally wrong. Completely. But why would anyone expect instant in-depth analysis on Iran from a J-school teacher?
For years, General قاسم سلیمانی operated openly, believing America would not attack him for fear of starting World War 3. President Trump called his bluff. And here we are. Last night, Iran threw some missiles at us and immediately announced it will stop as long as we do not retaliate for their retaliation for our retaliation.
This was face-saving. Sun Tzu said,
"When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard."
He also said,
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
How worried was the president before the attack? He sent the Pentagon home early due to snow.
President Trump knew Iran could not retaliate. The media portrayed him as a madman starting World War 3. After Iran embarrassed itself, the media embarrassed itself.
At every step of the way, the nation's media has been wrong about Donald Trump. They said he was not a serious candidate, that he would not win the nomination, that he would not be elected, that he would quit before taking office, that he would resign, that the economy would crash, that Comey would bring him down, that Mueller would bring him down, that bombing Syria would start World War 3, that tweeting Kim Jong Un would start World War 3, that his tax cuts would not work....
Readers get the picture. Reporters do not. They never learn which shows a tenacious stupidity.
President Trump does not want war. He has said that all along. He also said he was preventing a war by killing General Terrorist. It certainly seems like he has prevented one.
Now negotiations can begin between the USA and Iran, a land of 81 million people that was once Westernized.
He ended his gloom and doom piece in Atlantic,
"When it comes to Iran, Trump has shifted Republican foreign policy away from war without shifting it toward diplomacy — the only stable alternative to war. So he’s caught in a kind of purgatory. The American embassy compound in Baghdad, now covered in pro-Iranian graffiti and strewn with broken glass, is the latest symbol of that purgatory. It probably won’t be the last."
Exactly a week later, Beinart's reputation is in the Dumpster along with four years of all the other media predictions.
