By admin 
President Trump was at it again Thursday morning, issuing threats on Iran that nobody (least of all Iranians) could take seriously and likening the coming days of combat to the easy triumph in Venezuela, a comparison that he has made many times before, though even he should have detected its fallacy long ago.
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His entire comment, which he posted on Truth Social at 8:22 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, is worth quoting and parsing:
The United States will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT. At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Let’s take this post claim by claim and threat by threat.
“The United States will be hitting Iran … VERY HARD TONIGHT.” To what end is unclear. If hitting more than 13,000 targets in 39 days of massive bombardment failed to bring Iran’s leaders to their knees, and if firing an additional 49 Tomahawk cruise missiles earlier this week had no effect (other than committing a war crime, if it’s true, as Iranians say, that one of the missiles hit a water reservoir), then what would be the point of inflicting more damage from the air?
“Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!)” And yet Iran continues to launch attacks against Israel and the Gulf nations, even shooting down a $25 million Apache helicopter (which is what prompted Wednesday’s retaliatory strike by 49 Tomahawks, which cost about $3 million each). And its threats to launch drones or missiles against oil tankers whose captains dare transit the Strait of Hormuz illustrates the continued success of its asymmetric warfare strategy.
“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other Oil and Gas Markets.”This is far from the first time Trump has publicly threatened to take over Kharg, which serves as the terminal for 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports. A small-scale map might suggest that it’s vulnerable to occupation, as it borders the Persian Gulf, just across from U.S. bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. However, it’s also about 20 miles from Iran’s mainland, from which Iran’s military could mount and resupply a steady barrage of missiles, drones, and even artillery fire.
In other words, taking over Kharg would mean putting American “boots on the ground” in Iran.
Even Trump thinks this is a lousy idea. In a Fox News interview Thursday morning, shortly after posting his threat, Trump said taking Kharg had always been his “preference,” but added, “I don’t know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest.”
True, but then why does he publicly issue these threats in the first place? Sounding a threat, then backing away from it, only makes him—and, by extension, the United States—look weaker.
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Later on Thursday, Trump went further still, retracting his threat to hit Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT,” citing progress in peace talks, which he’s cited (as they’ve turned out, mythically) in previous dial-backs.
“We will be taking Kharg Island, and other Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America.” From the start of his bombing campaign in late February, Trump thought crushing Iran would be as quick and easy as toppling and abducting Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro the month before. His advisers warned him otherwise, noting that Iran’s military, especially its elite Revolutionary Guard, was well armed, deeply embedded in the country’s social and economic structures, and fiercely loyal to the regime.
The advisers, of course, proved right. Now Trump is equally deluded in believing that the U.S. could not only take over Kharg but, by doing so, dominate Iran’s “Oil and Gas Markets.” This may be happening in Venezuela, but only because U.S. energy companies were entrenched in Venezuela not long ago and one major firm (Chevron) continued its presence after most of the others were booted out, and Maduro’s successors—who turn out to savor power primarily for the money, not for nationalism or ideology—are fine with welcoming back more.
This is not going to be true in Iran, where Western oil companies (which, along with the CIA, helped overthrow its democratic government in 1953) have not been present since the 1979 revolution and are unlikely to be welcome for as long as the Revolutionary Guard continues to be in charge—which it seems certain to be for some time. The notion that “the Iranian people” would rise up to take power as the mullahs and generals fled—which Trump briefly propagated, at the encouragement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—was always “bullshit” (as one of Trump’s advisers scoffed at a Cabinet meeting), and it is doubtful that Trump or Netanyahu really believed it either. (It has since been reported that both hoped to hoist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of Iran’s most oppressive former presidents, back to the throne after killing the Ayatollah and his minions.)
So everything Trump says is fantasy, and his contradictory statements (e.g., “In the not too distant future we will be taking Kharg Island” and “I don’t know if the American people have the stomach for it”) leave the impression—in the minds of friends, foes, and fellow citizens—that not even he knows what he believes or what is real.
One thing is sure, though: The United States, at least as long as Trump is president and his enablers control Congress, has lost all its moral stature in world affairs. Trump has made it very clear that, in his mind, U.S. foreign policy is all about money.
In the wake of the Special Forces’ abduction of Maduro, he dropped all prior talk of restoring Venezuelan democracy and spoke only of all the money we’d be making from reviving—and dominating—the country’s oil output. He has often spoken of ending the war in Ukraine, so that we could bring back lucrative business deals with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And now, he is talking about escalating the war in Iran, to an extent that would be deadly and profoundly unpopular, in order to take over the country’s oil.
And yet, nobody believes he’s going to do this. And so he’s stuck, having started an unnecessary war almost four months ago, and now not knowing how to get out without accomplishing his one and only aim, however anyone might define it—winning.
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