What's the Actual Goal Here, Anyway?

So the main problem - among many - with Trump's foreign adventurism is the utter lack of a point to any of it. Generally speaking, our foreign policy is OUTCOME oriented. For instance, when W went into Afghanistan, it was ostensibly to destabilize the Taliban and their support for al-Qaeda, ultimately making America safer and making sure the only people getting blown up were service members overseas. When we went into Iraq it was to demonstrate that dictators were bad and the only dictators we wouldn't blow the shit out of were the ones with nuclear weapons. It also made Halliburton a ton of money. Oh and we were supposed to be proving the truism that Democracy Works and every nation - even a nation with HUGE sectarian strife because it was drawn on a fucking napkin by British imperialists - would be happier if they could just vote for their leaders. I don't think we proved the theory of the case in Iraq except to accelerate *every* nation's nuclear program for fear of turning into Saddam Hussein.

Anyhow, when Obama took office he saw a region destabilized by US intervention and an Israeli Prime Minister looking for any excuse to blow up Tehran, tacitly backed by the Saudis who have - again - a 1300-year-old beef with Iran over the true heir to Mohammed. So Obama instituted a sanctions regime designed to hurt Iran's economy SO THAT they would enter into an agreement to stop pursuing nuclear weapons (remember: the only reason they wanted nukes was to prevent the US from bombing the shit out of them). The sanctions regime worked and we entered into an agreement with Iran that paused their weapons program for ten years in exchange for open trading and a revitalized economy. This cooling-off period was probably done in the hopes of preventing Israel or Saudi Arabia from using Iran's nuclear enrichment as a pretext for war.

Then Donald the Dove (Maureen Dowd should be asked *daily* for her opinion on Trump now) showed up and promised to introduce a golden era of isolationism and stop foreign adventurism. I'll pause here for you to laugh at that claim. Then, after standing on a debate stage and criticizing Iraq as one of the worst foreign policy decisions in US history, he hired the architect of the Iraq War, the Mustache of Terrible Choices, John Bolton. He also campaigned on pulling us out of the Iran nuclear agreement, because there was a black guy who made the deal and Trump doesn't like him very much.

So we pulled out of the deal - keep in mind, Iran was complying with the deal, so WE reneged on OUR commitments - and reimposed a crippling sanctions regime. The first time we imposed a sanctions regime it was TO GET THE NUCLEAR DEAL. So now we've reimposed it but with no real endgame whatsoever. Because the best possible outcome would be...the deal we just set on fire. And this question - what does Trump actually WANT from Iran - has been there since the campaign. He's at times alluded to some magical "better deal" with Iran, but WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? They wait 20 years instead of 10 to enrich uranium? He never offered specific criticisms of the deal, just that Obama made it ergo it was bad.

The latest news last week is that, absent the deal, Iran is going to continue enriching uranium and pushing toward having a nuclear weapon. This is frankly logical on their part because nuclear weapons are the only safeguard against pre-emptive war by the US. So the US imposed crippling sanctions, relaxed the sanctions in exchange for Iran pausing their weapons program, then reimposed the sanctions with no clear plan forward. We're now telling the Iranian regime they're not allowed to have nuclear weapons BUT they're also not allowed to have a functioning economy. And we're doing all of this with a President whose approval remains underwater, NO SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, and zero international support or credibility. So the Iranian regime is wagering - fairly - that unlike W, Trump won't be able to muster the support at home or abroad for an invasion. They're probably going to ramp up their enrichment and try to get a nuclear weapon before Trump can lie/blunder his way into a much bigger, much more catastrophic, version of the thing he accused Bush of doing.

There should be Congressional hearings next week on what the actual goal here is. Nobody - not Bolton, not Mike Pompeo, and CERTAINLY not Dear Leader - has articulated what it is we want from Iran other than to destabilize them either by military force or fomenting a popular uprising.

The only good news here is that Trump gets bored easily and he's done this kind of brinksmanship with Kim Jong Un and again in Venezuela, but the second things start to look too hard for him, he just crawls back into bed and moves on to the next thing about Who's Being Mean To Him Today.

So I dunno where things go, but it would be really nice if someone could articulate even a fraction of what the plan is supposed to be.