Americans are waking up this morning to the enormous magnitude of Trump's murderous blunder in the assassination by drone of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. The size of the crowds greeting the return of Suleimani's body to Iran will pierce the usual fog of the American consumerist-militarist-exceptionalist mindset. There was decent anti-war showing yesterday in towns and cities across the United States.
Trump has threatened to bomb Iran if it retaliates, targeting its cultural sites, a war crime. Iraq's parliament has voted to expel U.S. forces. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has introduced a War Powers Resolution requiring Trump to come to Congress before he escalates attacks on Iran any further.
Unless Trump can somehow get the tiger he has unleashed back in its cage, my guess is that he has significantly damaged his hopes for reelection. Tucker Carlson defended Trump's reticence to retaliate against Iran this past summer when Iran shot down a U.S. drone by asserting that to do so would have alienated Trump's base. Well, assassinating Suleimani, an Iranian national hero, is a unilateral declaration of war. How is that going to play with Trump's putative anti-war base? At this point I would think that even an addled Joe Biden, arguing for a restoration of JCPOA and the Obama status quo, could beat Trump.
Make no mistake, the situation is dire. The red flag has been unfurled. American exceptionalism -- the U.S. as "indispensable nation" -- is done. Kaput.
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