OPINION:
President Trump has shaken the military industrial Neocon complex, with its new Democrat cheerleaders, to the core. Nothing has riled Washington more than the threat of ending a war, one that President Barack Obama started. However, our current president is on to something.
Syria is not the problem; it is a symptom of what is wrong with the Middle East.
The Iraq War was truly a stupendous mistake. We will feel the effects for generations. Mr. Trump is right; it was one of the worst foreign policy decisions ever made for the American republic. We could have contained Iraq. We could have kept inspecting, inspecting, inspecting for those weapons that were never going to be found because they weren’t there. Instead, the George W. Bush crowd wasted, yes wasted, thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars on a bad assumption. As a father, I am enraged. In a civil court, they would call that negligent homicide. Oh the arrogance.
However, the even worse part is what the Iraq War unleashed. Iraq was not the hotbed of Islamic extremism. Iraq was containing Islamic extremism.
Iran is the hotbed, the Mecca, the Holy Land of Islamic extremism. The Mullahs run a murderous regime that has exported terror around the world; and yes, even Sunni-instigated terror. The Iraq War gave Tehran all the cards — control of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, etc. A Shia extremist land bridge from Tehran to the Mediterranean now exists, thanks to Obama for pulling out troops to early and adding gasoline to the fire, I might add. And oh yea, they are on the path to get nuclear weapons. Thanks W.
The Iraq War did more to damage our national security than any terror attack ever did. It gave the murderers control and cost us much blood and treasure. We are weaker for it.
The Bushes were told this. They ignored it. Oh the arrogance. Or maybe: Oh the incompetence is a better way to put it. They need to be held accountable, but that is for another column.
Enter Donald J. Trump stage right.
Mr. Trump can solve the Bush/Clinton/Obama coalition’s hot mess. Mr. Trump can reverse decades of American foreign policy idiocy. He can bring our troops home.
He can bring down the Iranian terrorist regime.
I’m not talking about using American force; I’m talking about supporting indigenous forces inside the country to finally bring down the killers of Tehran. They exist. They are ready. The regime is at its weakest point in years. It has no legitimacy, no moral authority, not even any religious underpinnings.
The regime in Iran is nothing but a criminal lie.
Yes, Mr. Trump can solve the problem. Then Syria is solved, Lebanon is solved, and Iraq is solved once the support for terror is gone and there is a legitimate government in Persia. Israel will be secure, and our influence will be much greater in the region with a democratic process in place, installed by the Iranians themselves, not enforced by the barrel of a gun.
This would cement Mr. Trump’s legacy of one of the greatest presidents this country has ever known.
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