That he is in any way solely, or even directly, responsible is of course vanishingly improbable. US presidents don't, in real terms, have that kind of power now, if they ever did. It's far more likely Trump just rubber stamped an action urged by Pompeo and his war-crazed backers, or even that he only knew about it after it was done.
But that's just detail. The fact Trump is being scapegoated implies that at least for now those really responsible are backtracking and thinking better of the venture.
But what
As we said yesterday, war with Iran has been the auto-erotic fixation for the hardcore war nuts in Washington for years, and imminent confrontation has been predicted regularly since at least 2005.
But it's never become a reality because the non-crazies in Washington know the risks outweigh the benefits for US interests.
Sure, we know in recent times the Trump administration has been ramping up the tensions again. Tearing up the nuclear deal, re-imposing sanctions, sabre-rattling, making threats. But this has all been within the familiar framework that always just stops short of actual conflict.
The murder of Soleimani is orders of magnitude beyond anything they have ever risked before. Good analysts like the Saker and Moon of Alabama have pointed out that the US has basically defeated its own aims, all but destroyed itself in the region. In MoA's words:
The U.S. has won nothing with its attack but will feel the consequences for decades to come. From now on its position in the Middle East will be severely constrained. Others will move in to take its place.
Even if this turns out too dire and sweeping a prediction, the truth still is clear that the US have apparently gained nothing from this venture and lost a great deal.
Of course both the US and Israel now have carte blanche to stage as much false flag 'terrorism' as they want and blame it on Iranian 'revenge'. Whatever else happens, we can almost certainly look forward to some of that.
And, there is the bonus of being able to drive the US homeland even further toward fascism in the guise of 'preparing' for new waves of terror attacks. The Mayor of New York is already doing his own narrative preparation for this, claiming, per the Jerusalem Post that
We have to assume this action puts us in a de facto state of war
But all this seems small gains for massive losses. The question 'what were you thinking?' hangs there, currently unanswered. If this was clever geopolitical chess it's currently so deep as to defeat all analysis.
Claims that the US is just doing Israel's bidding don't even cut it. If the US loses its hold on the ME as a result of an ill-judged war with Iran, how will this benefit Israel? Does it believe it can inherit the imperial mantle? If so, it's deluded. Without US protection Israel would not last long in its current form.
Some have suggested it's a 'clever' plot to hike up oil prices. But really? There are much lower risk ways of doing that than launching a war and forcing Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz.
The QAnon crowd have even suggested it's an ultra smart way of getting the US out of Iraq. Well, we have to admit that could be the result. But does anyone really believe that was the plan?
No one has yet, to my knowledge, put out the US simply goofed and are now desperately trying to cover themselves but that is at least as likely as some of the above.
The major question really though is will this backtracking and odd claims of wanting de-escalation actually do anything to de-escalate? Will it persuade Iran not to seek retaliation, supposing this is now what Pompeo et al want?
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