Trump’s Overrated Peace Plan Helped Enable the Horrors in Israel and Gaza

I was wondering how long it would be before someone posted "It's Trumps fault."

SFC John D. LTC Stephen C. LTC Trent Klug Cpl Vic Burk Maj Ronald (Ron) Scarpa MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D.

LTC Eugene Chu
..."The Wall Street Journal published an exclusive claiming that Iran helped plot the attack, and gave Hamas a green light. However, an IDF spokesperson says they’re continuing to investigate, but haven’t seen evidence Iran “was involved in planning or training.” The U.S. says similarly, while both Hamas and Iran denied that Iran directed the attack or knew about it in advance.

That signals that none of those parties want a wider war. Unless evidence emerges that Hamas’ assault ultimately came from Tehran, Israel will likely focus on Palestinian militants, and the U.S. will work to avoid a regional conflagration, rather than start one.

Nevertheless, Iran does supply Hamas with weaponry, and expressed support after the recent attack. They’re both part of an “Axis of Resistance” against Israel, the U.S., the West (and to some extent Saudi Arabia), along with Syria, Hezbollah, and Iraqi Shia militias. With this many volatile relationships involved, there are multiple ways the war could spiral, even if none of the major players want it to.

Here, too, Trump’s foreign policy put the U.S. in a worse position.

In 2018, he unilaterally broke the Iran nuclear deal, which the Pentagon and American intelligence said Iran was following, letting Iran out of nuclear restrictions in exchange for nothing, and angering U.S. allies. In 2019, Trump moved towards war after Iran likely was behind attacks on two commercial tankers in the Gulf, but offered to negotiate at the last minute, and when Iran declined, called off the attack anyway. The U.S. had already started conducting cyber operations against Iranian defenses, revealing which systems America had penetrated for what turned out to be Trump’s unsuccessful bluff.

In early 2020, after U.S. exchanges with Iran-backed Iraqi militias and a riot at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard general Qasem Soleimani, the first direct American attack on a foreign military commander since World War II. Soleimani had a lot of blood on his hands and constituted a legitimate military target in Iraq, given his involvement in the threat to the American embassy. But the strike prompted the Islamic Republic’s first-ever open attack on American forces, firing missiles at a U.S. base in Iraq that injured over 100, but luckily killed none, giving the U.S. an offramp from escalation.

Killing Soleimani ultimately yielded no strategic gain, as other Revolutionary Guard leaders moved up a spot and operations continued. The one lasting effect was Iraq falling under more Iranian influence.

Elsewhere, the Trump administration backed the failed Saudi-led attempt to blockade Qatar, which did little besides pushing Qatar closer to Iran, and seemed driven more by an effort to line Jared Kushner’s pockets than advance any coherent American interest. Later, Trump’s chaotic, haphazard approach to Syria screwed over America’s Kurdish partners, embarrassingly yielded U.S. bases to Russia, and ended up improving Iran’s position."...

One of his many MEGA MAGA Illusions.
Rich