It’s true: Donald Trump is getting awfully bored. The whole Mueller thing, which looked like it was going to be so much fun, has gone flatter than that liter bottle of malt liquor you opened last night and forgot to finish. Where’s the sparkle? Where’s the punch?
I got up this morning planning to start in on a long, and surely very learned, article responding to a slew of pieces, short and long, by the WashPost’s Dan Drezner, encapsulated by Dan in new post, snappily titled “The most apocalyptic article I have ever written”, in which Dan gives us a jargony but serious warning, “If the great powers start segmenting their economic exchange [reducing their trade], it’s a sign that they see conflict down the road,” citing disturbing similarities between the current state of affairs and the unfortunate series of events leading to World War I.
Well, I wanted to argue with Dan—I don’t know exactly how I would have differed with him, though surely I would have found a way1—if Donald Trump hadn’t lapped the both of us by labeling Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, an absolutely terrible, and highly dangerous, decision, as the American Conservative’s Daniel Larison, painfully prescient as usual, explains—virtually guaranteeing that it will be impossible for the U.S. and Iran to have anything resembling “normal” relations. In fact, it will be difficult for us to have peaceful ones, according to Dan:
There is an obvious danger that this decision could lead to armed conflict between U.S. forces and Iranian-backed militias and proxies, but the designation could have other unexpected consequences that go beyond U.S.-Iranian relations. The precedent set by labeling part of another government’s military as terrorists not only makes it more likely that our military personnel will be subjected to similar treatment, but it also blurs the definition of what constitutes a terrorist organization. Labeling the entire IRGC as a terrorist organization is inaccurate and it continues a trend of using the label of terrorist to mean “something that we don’t like and want to punish.” The Iranian conscripts who are required to serve in the IRGC are obviously not terrorists according to any sane definition of the word, but this designation means that the U.S. will now treat them as if they are. The Trump administration keeps finding new and irresponsible ways to drive the regime and the people together and to make conflict between the U.S. and Iran more likely. U.S.-Iranian tensions are now set to increase with no clear path for de-escalation.
This brutal and entirely unwarranted harassment of another country (which of course presents no threat to us whatsoever) comes on the heels of Trump’s extended shitfit directed at Mexico. Our president obviously wished that he could inflict some “real” rather than rhetorical damage on one of our most important economic partners, but, to his great and obvious disappointment, this grotesque nonsense so offended the Republican donor class that even Mitch McConnell told our maximum leader to stuff it. Trump’s response to was to return to, and amplify, the most vicious rhetoric of his campaign, accusing Mexico of being the author of all our woes, sending us both rapists and drugs. Unsurprisingly, he demanded the resignation of the Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, because someone had to pay for his own stupidity, incompetence, and moral depravity. Over at Vox, Dara Lind explains exactly how big, and how vicious, an idiot Trump is being over the whole matter of immigration (hat tip to Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown for leading me to Dara).
So, yeah, Dan Drezner, I definitely want to mix it up regarding the causes of World War I and, you know, today, but I’m afraid our “great debate” is very much in danger of being mooted. With the damn Democrats in control of the damn House of Representatives, and that damn Alexandra Ocasio-Who-Da-Fuck getting all his press, what’s a Donald to do but start a war?
1. For the benefit of the one person who might be so bored as to click on this link, the post titled “Daniel Drezner, harrumphing audibly” is a very extended semi-takedown of one of Dan’s mentors, the late Robert Gilpin, and the fourth (“Dan Drezner is shocked …”) is largely though not entirely based on a misreading of Dan’s actual post.
