INTERESTING TAKE: Trump is not cucking on regime change: Another boomerang operation. [archive]
Trump ran his campaign on preferring a “bad guy” like Assad, if the only alternative is jihadist whackjobs who will spread chaos and violence all around the Middle East and the wider world.
Now, he pins the blame on Assad and says it’s changed his mind. He says he’s famously flexible and not a rigid ideologue, so his plans are subject to change.
But when you listen to interviews from 10, 20, and 30 years ago, it’s clear that he is the least flexible or mutable person who has ever taken high office. At least on the very important matters like trade, re-industrialization, immigration, healthcare, and foreign policy, all fitting into the broad theme of nationalism and populism. He even uses the same phrases and intonation (1999: “Saudi Arabia is ripping us off big-league“). . . .
What does change from Trump is his moment-to-moment messaging, image, and presentation — meant to throw his enemies onto the wrong track, keep them guessing, and lure them into letting their guard down. . . .
The “tell” that Trump is playing his enemies yet again is how over-the-top his denunciations have been about the inhuman barbarity against little beautiful babies. This is the same guy who responded to Bill O’Reilly’s attempt to provoke him into denouncing Putin as a “killer” with, “Yeah, well, there’s a lot of killers out there — you think we’re so innocent?”
He knows which side is likely behind the attack, if not the specific jihadi group / state enabler / deep state operatives. Those specifics will take some time to figure out, and he needs to be left alone by his enemies in the meantime.
Rather than dismissing the attack on Twitter as “another obvious false flag trying to lure our stupid leaders into wasting lives and money in the Middle East,” he’s going to turn it back around on the real perpetrators.
In order for that boomerang to inflict maximum damage, he’s going to have to get people’s emotions on fire about how intolerable the act was. Then when we read a tweet about how he “just found out” that it was really, say, al-Nusra, helped along by Turkey, with CIA support — he can call for greater severity against the jihadists (torture to get information), a clean break with the wrong-side-of-history nations like Turkey / Saudi Arabia, and heads to roll among deep state warmongers.
UPDATE: From the same author: War was green-lit before Trump took office, NOT a betrayal. [archive] “The military has goals of its own . . . If they’re going to go along with Trump being the leader of the nation, he’s going to have to give them something they want as well. And considering that they could stage a coup against him, they have considerable leverage over him.” Say what?