Oh boy. Things are picking up speed. Welcome to the quickening. Let’s dive in.
It’s The War, Stupid
I could have just one category today, “It’s the war, stupid.” as it’s such target-rich territory.
Let’s begin with this remarkable piece in Bloomberg, notable because of how far it throws Trump under the bus wheels during the first month of a hot war.
Usually, it takes years to get to this level of questioning. Think Walter Cronkite in the waning days of Vietnam…that long. The unwritten rule is you don’t cast aspersions on the president right out of the gate.
(Emphasis mine)
The war in Iran once again presented Donald Trump with an intractable dilemma.
He needed to calm energy markets that were surging once more after Iran struck energy infrastructure across the Persian Gulf, retaliating for an Israeli attack Wednesday on its biggest natural gas field.
So the president turned to social media, posting that the US had no advance knowledge of Israel’s plan — while warning he himself could target Iran if its retribution campaign continued.
But only hours earlier, people familiar with the coordination efforts told reporters in Washington that while the US didn’t participate, it had been read in on the attack. And in Israel, officials insisted Trump knew — and had exerted considerable influence throughout the war over target choices.
The conflicting messages, only the latest incongruity in a war that’s killed thousands and is already shaking economies across the globe, ended up further jolting markets.
They soft peddled it a bit there, but the implication is clear – it was Trump who was lying.
The looming political disaster isn’t just domestic, it’s international.
The article continues noting it’s been a long, unbroken string of blunders, miscalculations, and mistakes:
It’s an all-too-familiar quandary for Trump, who in the Middle East now confronts a vise grip of his own making. He’s being forced to reconcile increasingly contradictory goals: total victory against Iran, and avoiding extreme, lasting damage to energy infrastructure that could reverberate through the global economy for years.
So far, the president has grasped for whatever levers
by elina90 
