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Feral Finster's avatar

Trump is weak, stupid and has no interests other than his personal aggrandizement.

This leaves him eminently easily manipulated.

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John Bortz's avatar

He's solely focused on increasing his wealth, fame, and power. So, yes, his only interest is in personal aggrandizement. As for stupid, I think he's actually extremely smart in certain ways. He's definitely politically smart, though maybe wily is a better word. He's skilled at manipulating the System, which means he will sometimes purposely allow himself to be manipulated when he believes that will help him achieve his goals. He's pathetically weak in that he's become hopelessly addicted to the false pleasures of wealth, fame, and power. He's likely incapable of experiencing any kind of true pleasure.

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Feral Finster's avatar

His own appointees ("only the best people!") have characterized him as an imbecile.

I would agree that he is talented as a salesman and a bullshitter, he is good at getting his way, which is very different from intelligence in an IQ test sense.

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John Bortz's avatar

OK, here's my take on that issue, FWIW. Due to the fact that he's demonstrated a high level of skill in political manipulation, I suspect his score on an IQ test would fall well within the "normal" range. He might even have a somewhat above average IQ. But he appears to be an imbecile to many people because he has no interest in learning anything that isn't likely to increase his wealth, fame, and power. So he's extremely ignorant on many topics, such as history, law, science, and philosophy. But that doesn't make him an imbecile.

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Feral Finster's avatar

Perhaps.

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Punditman's avatar

Or any kind of true empathy, personal or strategic.

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Barry Eisler's avatar

Respect for your early and accurate insights into Trump and Iran (and ditto for your coverage of Tulsi Gabbard). As someone who to some degree harbored a degree of naive optimism on both topics, I’m particularly grateful for your consistent refusal to have your analysis distorted by hope, tribalism, or anything else.

I can understand why you might be reluctant to do it—it might come across as self-congratulatory—but I’m curious if you have any sense of why your analysis has been so spot-on while others have been less accurate. After all, Trump has made any number of pretty speeches about cutting military spending, ending the American regime’s addiction to war, etc, and a lot of people went for those head fakes but you never did.

In contract law, there’s a rule of construction wherein a contradiction in language will be resolved in favor of the specific outweighing the general. Is that part of it? That is, Trump said lots of general things about war being bad and many specific ones about bombing Iran. But of course when he was out of office he also said specific critical things about Obama and Biden ginning up war against Iran. All of which is to say, he did offer “evidence” in favor of both war and no war.

Anyway again, you’ve been unusual in knowing which evidence to discount and which mattered. I think any insights into your approach would be useful to anyone who’d prefer to not get fooled again.

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Michael Tracey's avatar

Everything that Trump has ever done or said with respect to Iran that's had any tangible policy specificity has weighed in favor of accelerating bellicosity toward Iran. People have decided to ignore or distort his first term record on Iran, which was marked by a drastic acceleration in bellicosity. What did he ever say or do that substantively indicated this would change in a second term? Nothing. As to campaign rhetoric, what has more tangible policy specifics: vaguely claiming you aspire to bring "peace to the Middle East" -- which could mean essentially anything -- or pledging to expedite weapons shipments to Israel, and endorsing an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities? Trump said all of the above in 2024, and discerning observers should have been able to cut through the noise, but didn't for a variety of reasons, including because many of them decided to disable their discernment faculties in service of rooting for a Trump victory.

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Barry Eisler's avatar

Thanks. Maybe one lesson here is to distinguish between a politician's stated goals ("I'm for peace in the Middle East!") and the politician's articulation of means "I'm going to bomb Iran for peace!"), with the latter deserving of far more weight. This sounds obvious when said aloud but judging from the overall coverage of events, I think it's an unusual approach.

And that's probably the relatively easy part. More difficult is avoiding the various temptations of tribalism and the distortions it causes. For anyone looking for self-defense in this regard, I recommend a terrific short essay called Keep Your Identity Small, by Paul Graham.

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BookWench's avatar

I was misled by Trump's pledge of "No new wars," and "I'll be your peace president" -- with no caveats, I might add. If he had added, "unless Israel convinces me that Iran has nukes," I would have been less surprised at his actions toward Iran.

Unfortunately, our only two choices were Trump and Kamala (who never seemed to mention peace at all), so I made the best choice I could. All I ever really expected out of Trump was that he might slow the roll of the globalists. Ah well, at least he secured the southern border.

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Ignasz Semmelweisz's avatar

Before this article was published, where did you contemporaneously document it all?

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Marc's avatar

My 2 picks the Nimitz will be the next "Remember the Maine" false flag. And that we will use tactical nukes( the new Pentagon toy) not bunker busters to get the Iranian sites .

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Jim S's avatar

Thank You Michael

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tpc7829's avatar

Michael— Didn’t Witkoff publicly state that the “deal” allowed for limited enrichment before Trump moved his own “red line” to zero enrichment, making himself a Monet of red line composition, and making his use of the phrase “red line” all the more notable, i.e., fraudulent?

So did Trump really follow through on the “red line” threat?

If that’s an accurate characterization, it only serves to further highlight the apparent and public shift from a tenable to untenable diplomatic solution, thus providing a clear indication of imminent military action.

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Michael Tracey's avatar

Witkoff went on Hannity's show April 14 and vaguely suggested the notion that Iran may be allowed to retain enrichment at 3.67%, which was the old JCPOA benchmark. Here's the exact quote: "They do not need to enrich past 3.67%, in some circumstances they're at 60%, in other circumstances 20%. That cannot be. And you do not need to run, as they claim, a civil nuclear program where you're enriching past 3.67%." Some construed this as a policy statement that Trump Administration "negotiators" would accept the continuation of enrichment at 3.67%, but the wording was ambiguous at best. Either way, Witkoff rushed to offer a firm clarification the very next morning, posting on his official government X account that Iran must "eliminate its nuclear enrichment." Full quote:

“A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal. Any final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East -- meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program. It is imperative for the world that we create a tough, fair deal that will endure, and that is what President Trump has asked me to do.”

After that point, Witkoff became much more unambiguous with his public wording: the "red line" was no enrichment whatsoever. "We cannot allow even one percent of an enrichment capability." (May 18)

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Punditman's avatar

Great work, Michael. It's an uphill battle to try to explain the time line of events that brought us to this precipice. From Trump's first campaign onwards, I always noticed that he has a particular hate on for Iran. And here we are.

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Gene Avila's avatar

Great article Michael. We are ruled by the most despicable and vile fuckers on earth. This is an evil country in a cruel world.

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Ted VO's avatar

To be elected president, you must kowtow to Israel, which is why they all do it. Come out against Israel and AIPAC and the Christian Zionists will hang your political scalp on the wall.

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Guven Cagil's avatar

You were right!! I could say that in my defense, that I voted for Jill Stein; however, I thought Trump was a better choice than Harris(if I had, say, resided in a swing state). Your choice of none of the above, perhaps, was the best option. But since that option is not actually on any ballot, all of us will have to take inspiration from Richard Pryor in Brewster's Millions.

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Duane McPherson's avatar

Excellent analysis. Thank you!

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Crapp's avatar

Iran’s been in the crosshairs long before this current crop of budget middle managers got their grubby little mitts on the leash of the system’s muscle bound attack dog (the american state apparatus). Horrifying, lamentable in the extreme yes. Surprising no, as you rightly point out, rather as predictable as late Colombo. “Just one more thing…..”

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ZebraZ's avatar

I guess it’s clear that what happened was ultimately another American cluster fuck defeat, with the orange impotent emperor more exposed as the quintessential psychopath and his Zionist handlers in Israel getting a good slap with destroyed ports and infrastructure, not even able to defend shit against nice large hypersonic missiles raining on their heads, except swimming toward Cyprus and leaving the shitty little settlement. And the Orange King’s delusional dreams of a quick victory down the dustbin of history.

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BookWench's avatar

I did not realize all this, and, obviously, should have subscribed to you sooner.

I am just ticked off that the man who campaigned as "the peace president," promising "no new wars," wound up sounding like General Jack D. Ripper, describing what "we" had just done to Iran.

I was astute enough to realize that the demands we were making on Iran during the "peace" negotiations were ridiculous, changing abruptly from "some enrichment" to "NO enrichment." I guess I'm mainly frustrated at Israel's obvious control over our foreign policy.

Just as Trump's first term forced the Deep State into the open, where we could see how extensive it was, his second term is revealing our total subservience to Israel. I knew the Trump Admin was filled with Israel simps, but it's been interesting seeing Congress Critters actually admit to prioritizing Israeli interests, as Senator Ted Cruz did during his recent interview with Tucker Carlson.

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Greg D's avatar

You are a loser

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Free Will's avatar

What about "Drill, Baby,Drill"/ending all legal hurdles and regulations at home and driving oil back to $20 barrels? Iran's economy is in tatters. The only thing keeping Iran afloat, even before a war, is the BRICK coalition that was forced to evolve after Biden's handlers tried to shut down Russia (early in our proxy Ukraine war). It is quite possible Trump is maneuvering for long term economy leverage. Wars have terrible unintended consequences.

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Thurl's avatar

Maybe the US should try to pursue a win-win policy.

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