War With Iran Would Be Illegal and Stupid. Democrats Should Care. |
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There was little that was surprising about U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. It contained the usual mix of racism, weird solipsistic digressions, needy self-glorification, and outright lies that Americans have unfortunately become accustomed to. But one thing that was striking in the nearly two-hour speech was the scant amount of time given to the possibility of war with Iran.
Over the past weeks, the United States has deployed the largest military force in the Middle East in decades. Yet the president offered only a few sentences about how Iran is building missiles that could strike the United States (there’s no evidence that this is true); criticizing the Iranian government’s killing of protesters (he doesn’t care); and insisting that, to avoid war, the Iranian government must say the “magic words” that it will never build a nuclear weapon (the Iranians have said this for years, and reiterated it just hours before the speech).
There was little that was surprising about U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. It contained the usual mix of racism, weird solipsistic digressions, needy self-glorification, and outright lies that Americans have unfortunately become accustomed to. But one thing that was striking in the nearly two-hour speech was the scant amount of time given to the possibility of war with Iran.
Over the past weeks, the United States has deployed the largest military force in the Middle East in decades. Yet the president offered only a few sentences about how Iran is building missiles that could strike the United States (there’s no evidence that this is true); criticizing the Iranian government’s killing of protesters (he doesn’t care); and insisting that, to avoid war, the Iranian government must say the “magic words” that it will never build a nuclear weapon (the Iranians have said this for years, and reiterated it just hours before the speech).
But Trump is not the only one paying such scant attention to what could be another era-defining U.S. foreign-policy catastrophe. His desultory treatment reflects the broader state of the........