As Trump’s aides leak his frustrations on Iran and his push to jail James Comey flounders, a legal observer explains how Trump is confronting the limits of his powers on many fronts as once.
Source: Transcript: Trump Failures Pile Up, and Aides Leak: He’s “Frustrated”
fta:
A senior official says Trump is frustrated by his failure to get Iran to budge, to the point of wanting to order a heavier attack on Iran. But he and his advisors decided against it because it could further deplete our weapons stockpiles. And David, get this: Trump told advisors that he fears that an escalation could cause a global economic meltdown and, quote, “turn me into a Hoover,” as Trump put it.
That’s a real admission. He doesn’t have the power to force Iran’s hand, and he’s acknowledging that Iran has leverage over the global economy. And it’s, of course, because of what he did, right?
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And part of it too, as you suggest, is that it’s not just Iranian interests versus U.S. interests. It’s like this triangulation of Iranian interests, U.S. interests, regional interests, Trump’s own personal political interests. And there’s no way for him to sort of do a 3D chess move on any of that. I mean, this is beyond his capability. It’s beyond how he even thinks, right? Negotiation for him is a zero-sum game. And I think the longer Iran holds out, the harder it is for him to figure out how to make sense of it, given the prism he looks at this through.
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I’m thinking about things like the high-seas strikes on drug smuggling boats. I’m thinking—you talk about areas with unfettered power—I’m thinking special operations activities around the globe. I’m thinking other military actions or activities we might not know about. And I’m not suggesting some dark, hidden conspiracy, I just mean we don’t know. And so while we are trying to gauge how well things are going, I suspect that we may be spending the next several decades unearthing things that happened during this period that we just didn’t know about.
