David Smith, The Guardian's Washington DC bureau chief writes on the US president upending half a century of foreign policy with another attempt at Middle Eastern regime change, "Trump vies for Bush’s Crown for Worst Foreign Policy Decision in US History". He writes, "George Bush Jr. dragged the US into a tragic war in Iraq in 2003 that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars and was recently crowned by Council on Foreign Relations thinktank as the worst foreign policy decision in US history. The avaricious Trump seems determined to seize that title for himself with another act of Middle Eastern regime change. At least Bush tried to make a case to justify his invasion - mendacious as it was - see The Center for Public Integrity and NPR's "Orchestrated Deception by Bush on Iraq" for reference - and tried to convince the UN of its merits. Trump did not even bother. He amassed a huge “armada” in the Middle East with little explanation to Congress or the public. In "Trump’s Ever-Changing Rationale for War on Iran", he did not mention Iran until more than an hour into last month’s State of the Union address. Finally, when the bombs were already falling, he tried to offer a rationale in his social media video. The Iranian regime, he said, are “a vicious group of very hard, terrible people” whose menacing activities “directly endanger” the US and its allies. Trump ran through the history of the Iran hostage crisis, the Marine barracks bombing, the attack on the USS Cole and Iran’s hand in killing and maiming US troops in Iraq. “It’s been mass terror, and we’re not going to put up with it any longer,” he said."
Both the New York Times and NPR chronicle the unsupported and exaggerated claims in the president's speech announcing the attack on Iran, "Fact-Checking Trump’s Justifications for Attacking Iran". But none of that answers a simple question: why now? David Smith continues, "Trump went on to reference Iranian proxy groups “that have soaked the earth with blood and guts” and cite Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel, saying: “Iran is the world’s No 1 state sponsor of terror and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested. Trump underlined the US policy that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon and glided past his own past claim that last June’s attack had “obliterated” its program, contending that the US wanted to make a deal but Tehran refused. “They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore,” he said. The president said the US had undertaken “a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests” - an ominous sign that Washington could be in for the long haul. The chair-for-life of the new Board of Peace promised to “raze their missile industry to the ground” and “annihilate their navy”. Then came an unexpected admission: “The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war, but we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.” Here was Trump, the reality TV president, understanding how desperate the optics will look if American service members return home in body bags, their lives sacrificed for a cause that the public little understands and still less believes in."
