https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/05/trumps-counterpunching-as-grand-strategy/
Trump’s Counterpunching as Grand Strategy
The president is leaving Iran, Iraq, and Syria to their own self-destructive devices while he empowers U.S. allies in the region and focuses on defending actual American interests.
Brandon J. Weichert
FTA:
Yes, the United States escalated a tense situation with Iran with the killing of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. It is possible, though, that Trump’s escalation was actually meant to de-escalate the larger problem with Iran. Trump’s moves may simply be about covering the exits while U.S. forces draw down from the area in an orderly fashion to more defensible positions in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/05/solving-the-persian-problem/
Solving the Persian Problem
A patient course gives Iran no option but to play Trump’s game at no cost or bloodshed for America.
Theodore Roosevelt Malloch
FTA:
Trump has shown insight and deliberation on Iran as he has attempted to renegotiate what was a horribly bad deal made by the Obama team and his secretary of state, John Kerry. It was a sell-out that did not achieve what it sought, failed in many areas, and sent money—in cash—to a terrorist state without getting sufficient benefits in return. It was, in other words, what Trump correctly called “a very bad deal.”
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Correcting Four Decades of Bad Policy
What Trump is doing on Iran is trying to fix decades of bad policy and to deflect that nation’s atrocious behavior in the region as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. The mullahs are reluctant to change their evil ways even if there are variations in their political views.
The pressure Trump has applied and the persistence to stay the course are increasingly likely to achieve a good outcome.
Iran’s economy suffers and suffers and then suffers some more. Inflation is out of control; the currency has fallen precipitously; goods are hard to find and expensive; oil revenues have plummeted; GNP continues to decline. All this in time could cause implosion or regime collapse without an American firing a shot.
If Trump keeps his nerve and implements measures that cut off Iran’s last foreign economic lifelines, that nation’s prospects will be grim. Iran’s population is already suffering under the incompetent rule of an oppressive theocracy. That explains its silly brinkmanship. But ruling mullahs also must know that blowing up the nuclear accord will only push the Europeans reluctantly into Trump’s arms and further worsen Iran’s economic plight.
Troops will not be leaving the embassy in Iraq. The Embassy was built and planned for a permanet address, so to speak.