The second, under Bush Junior, had unexpected side effects, dramatically enhancing Iran and a Shiite axis that’s allied with Moscow. Subsequent GOP saber rattling at Tehran is supposedly aimed at correcting that mistake.
Fostering that transition was a sought-after benefit from the Iran nuclear deal, but also deeply feared by the Iranian theocrats, who have done everything in their power to quash their people’s rising secular-western movement.
But there’s more. Nothing delights Donald Trump’s best pal — the Kremlin — more than the U.S. driving someone else into their growing anti-western alliance. That axis now includes Edogan of Turkey, Assad in Syria, many elements of the Shiite regime in Baghdad… and the mullahs in Tehran. When Trump and his team screech at Iran, you can be sure Putin will be chortling with glee, as this helps to eliminate reformers in Tehran and will cement his alliance with the mullahs.
Not if the princes are half as smart as their publicity flacks claim. Alas, like most inheritance lords, the Princes are likely much less bright than they believe. If they have three brain cells among them, they would see that driving the Iranian people into the mullahs’ arms, and driving the mullahs into Putin’s, will not ultimately go well for them. But a secular democratic Iran (Obama’s goal) would be harmless to Saudi interests. Are the Saudis perhaps wringing their hands with uncertainty?
They could do this, though it would take real imagination and grit (and a lot of cash.) And it would transform the Middle East, making it a safer place… yes, for them, as well.
== Ponder extreme up- and downside possibilities. ==
Try this exercise. Map our best and worst case scenarios. The best we can hope for, from a Saudi alliance is some slight tempering of the Wahabbist propaganda, teaching millions of young Sunnis to wage terror on the West. Ain’t much, and I doubt that Trump will even ask for that.
Oh, the downsides of turning the Iranians back into a raving, bomb-building theocracy are just as large, in the opposite direction. But expect no such complex thinking in this White House.
"Even the power of the presidency has considerable limits inside US borders. It’s the rest of the world I’m more concerned about, because it may look very different very quickly with Trump stomping around. If he continues this “America first” claptrap, regional powers like Russia, China, and Iran will grab the chance to expand influence, including militarily. The European Union may fall apart, and the far right may continue to make advances across Europe."
- former world chess champion Gary Kasparov (@Kasparov63)
Oh, they try hard to champion truth! In fact, only scientists are so badly maligned, by the fact hating right. Still, so caught up are even our best reporters, in breathlessly reporting the latest Trumpian lie volcano, that they cannot step back and counter it all with big picture perspective.
Take the gigantic setback to Russian policy that happened when Vladimir Putin's pal and viceroy in the Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted by pro-western protesters on 22 February 2014, and thereupon he fled the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev. Just three years ago, it was the worst setback to Moscow's hegemonism since the collapse of the USSR. Moreover Putin himself laid that whole event at the feet of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Putin attributed Obama with plenty of "feck." Go look at a map. Compare Crimea (which was never Ukrainian in the first place) to the huge Ukraine, and tell us your "feckless" narratives.
Lacking an empire, the prospect of a Russian titan, that seems so attractive to Trump supporters, may hit a wall. A demographic wall.
"Without remedial action, Russia’s population could shrink to 113 million by 2050, a decrease of more than 20 percent from today’s population of 144 million."
While the picture has grown slightly better, the last two years, Moscow's priorities (according to this report) aim at other perceived problems, like reviving the appearance of superpower status:
Sure he's smart. And good looking. And testosteronic. And one of the few "strongmen" who seems actually strong. So? I suspect another somewhat admirable trait that no one else seems to figure on. I think there's a chance that Vladimir Putin is sincere, and still loyal to the things he swore devotion to, at age 18.
===== ===== =====
Addendum: Sorry but it has to be said again, our news media are dumb! They zero in on the stupidities of the "Muslim Immigration Ban"... fine. They show the recent lie spewed by the Trump White House - that terror attacks went under-reported (there are no actual examples.) Fine. But do they connect the dots?
Dig it. The Trumpists are terrified someone with guts will say "What terrorism?"
Seriously, our parents in the Greatest Generation suffered more losses in any single week of WWII than we have across decades of "Islamic Terror."
If there's a case for increasing the vigilance of "vetting," then fine: we'd all love to see your plan. Tracking exit status of visa holders is long overdue, for example. Obama was already doing all of that.
But to issue screeching, blanket, ill-considered directives that take all our departments by surprise, banish legit Green Card holders and leave babies unable to get surgery? Justifying it as an "emergency"? After President Obama reigned over the safest period in the history of the republic?
Now you can see why DT had to rail that there really is more terrorism! It just went unreported!!
Alas, when this narrative collapses, there will be left for him just one option. And we are counting on our skilled professionals to beware. To catch it in time.
A Reichstag Fire.
=====
Further Addendum: “Russia and the United States have effectively switched roles in Afghanistan: In the 1980s, American CIA officers supplied weapons to anti-government rebels who were fighting the then-Soviet backed government and the Soviet troops supporting it. Today, 15 years after the American invasion, Russia has begun helping the Taliban against a weak American-backed government still supported by NATO troops and airpower.” - reports NPR.
Fox News and the alt-right media and the insane US Confederacy have talked millions of our fellow citizens into adoring Vladimir Putin and Moscow, shrugging off the thousands of nukes aimed at us, the repression of democratic neighbors, the meddling in our own elections… and now, interventions to assist the same Taliban that helped Osama bin Laden to attack us on 9/11.
Let’s be clear here. The nation that helped make Donald Trump president and that is best buds with not only Trump but a dozen cabinet officers, is helping the Taliban to destabilize the flawed but elected government we helped to foster over there, at huge expense in lives and treasure. And yes, they are helping the Taliban to attack our men and women serving there.
Oh, the German newspaper Die Zeit also reported that Russia is recruiting mercenaries to fight abroad.
The 1860s Confederacy never got major allies in its war against the United States of America. This time, they have. And they conquered Washington. But you traitors will be remembered. The Union shall rise.