What did Iran have to do with Nicaragua? Nothing except that the Reagan Administration used the sale of embargoed arms to Iran — yes the very Iran that we now hate — in an effort to fund the Contras in their opposition to the communist Nicaraguan government, all behind Congress’ back.
What does Saudi Arabia have to do with Ukraine? Nothing except that the Trump Administration is apparently sending troops to Saudi Arabia, which will conveniently distract from a whistleblower complaint that President Donald J. Trump allegedly withheld aid to Ukraine as he pressured the struggling democracy to investigate rival Joe Biden’s supposed efforts to aid son Hunter’s business dealings there. Needless to say, the administration won’t be producing the whistleblower complaint for the inevitable congressional hearings.
The hypocrisy and contradictions in the entire mess are rich. The “c” word has reared its ugly head again, but this isn’t about conspiracy or collusion. This is about alleged mob-like bribery and extortion: Do as I say or we’ll withhold something you need. Yet for all the thuggishness of Don Donaldo and his consigliere, Rudolph Giuliani, they failed to absorb the first rule of mob-dom: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
We wouldn’t be in the current Middle East mess — with the Saudis accusing Iran of blowing up their old fields - had we just stayed in the Iran nuclear agreement. If the agreement were as imperfect as some have said, then we could’ve worked from the inside to strengthen it. But Trumpet is so insecure that he must undermine the achievements of the real rival he can never defeat, President Barack Obama. So he does the exact opposite of his predecessor as his supporters spread falsehoods, like the notion that Obama “gave” Iran $150 billion. No, he unfroze the Iranians’ assets. It was their money.
Now we’re sending “some” soldiers to defend the Saudis — the same people who gave us most of the 9/11 hijackers, who behead adulteresses and cut off the hands of robbers, who brutally murdered criticizing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, then hacked his body to pieces, who are killing scores of children daily in their bombing of Yemen. And for what? According to Trump himself — whose son-in-law Jared Kushner is in bed financially with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and for whom the currency of narcissistic love is the dollar — the Saudis “pay in cash” for the weapons we sell them. So let them use those weapons themselves. Except that these men in long dresses don’t like to get their hands dirty. Like all bullies, they’re happy to pick on a weaker guy (see Yemen), but the smart, cultured Iranians — who created a sprawling empire conquered by Alexander the Great long before the Saudis wandered in the desert waiting for T.E. Lawrence — are an entirely different story.
I’m not suggesting that we’ve forgotten the Iran hostage crisis or that the Iranians are not funding terrorists in the region. But what makes them worse than Don Donaldo’s epistolary lover, “Lil Kim” Jong-un? Whatever happened to “America First”? Oh, I get it: We’re for engagement when it helps Trump’s political and business dealings. (As for Saudi Arabian oil, there’s plenty of oil the world over as well as far more environmentally-friendly sources of energy.) But we’re against engagement when it means helping brown people who might swarm the southern border and infest the country with future Democrats while swelling the nonwhite census rolls.
It was the great Victorian Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who said, “There are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests.” Except that permanence used to be measured in decades.
With narcissists, permanence has a grocery store shelf life.