President Donald Trump is “incompetent” and has made America into the “bad guy” in its war against Iran — at least, according to a prominent conservative commentator.
“In a war with a filthy little junta in Tehran, Donald Trump has managed to make the United States of America the bad guy,” wrote The Dispatch's Kevin D. Williamson on Wednesday. “If you are looking for a quick-and-easy definition of shmuck, there you go. Of course, it doesn’t help that it is an illegal and immoral war being waged by an incompetent game show host.”
Describing how Trump repeatedly declares America to have won the war against Iran even though it has been “fought to an effective standstill,” Williamson pointed out that Iran “pulled off the remarkable feat of gaining a strategic asset—effective control of the Strait of Hormuz—as a result of a war in which it has not won a single engagement.” Overall, he predicted that America will be worse off economically and strategically as a result of its invasion of Iran.
He also described this loss as humiliating.
“The United States is being fought to something worse than a draw by a third-rate power that cannot adequately supply its own capital city with water and electricity,” Williamson argued. “The world is noticing—it may even get bad enough that Americans start to notice, too. One half suspects that Trump’s expected Thursday announcement of an even wider and deeper attempt to intervene in the upcoming midterm elections is simply the reality show grotesque’s familiar gambit of trying to provoke a supplanting synthetic controversy into existence in order to distract the audience from the much more serious business—the humiliation and de facto defeat of the United States—transpiring abroad.”
Overall, he described America’s position after Iran as one of increased fuel prices, persistently high inflation and Iran gloating at America’s weakened position.
“One is tempted here to defame, by implication, the wits of nits,” Williamson concluded.
The war in Iran has become so controversial that other conservatives have also slammed Trump for his prosecution of it. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who Trump declined to endorse in his Republican primary to instead promote Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, recently pointed out that Trump broke his promise to not charge tolls for ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile center-left economists agree with Williamson that Trump has harmed America’s economy with the war in Iran.
“Even if hostilities do not restart, the price of oil will not return to pre-Trump levels because there’s a new risk premium that they could restart at any time, increasing tanker insurance costs for example, and because oil infrastructure has been degraded, reducing supply for some time,” Dr. Robert Shapiro, who served as a top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, told Alternet in April. “An Iran-controlled toll to use the Strait will produce big bucks for Iran, but its impact on world prices for oil, natural gas, helium, etc. should be minimal. Another source of economic friction will be the now-intense uncertainty about what the Trump administration will do next—in the Mideast and in scores of policies at home; and uncertainty dampens investment.”
He added, “As it is, the economy was weakening before this crisis began, and these and other factors will exacerbate those downward pressures. A resolution over the next two weeks will not stop the deterioration in economic conditions.”
By contrast, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told AlterNet at the time that “the United States’ energy dominance status, as the world’s leading producer and a top exporter of oil and natural gas, has positioned us to not rely on the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz like other countries. If anything, Operation Epic Fury actually underscored the importance of producing reliable, affordable, and secure energy here at home. Many of our allies that have tried transitioning to intermittent and unreliable renewable energy sources have predictably failed to break their reliance on foreign oil that goes through the Strait."
She added, "Several countries from around the world are now looking to emulate the President’s energy dominance agenda and are advancing new partnerships that enhance their energy security with the United States.”