Columnist Ted Snider warns President Donald Trump is threatening to push the U.S. into wars against Iran, Venezuela, and Nigeria on a bogus premise.
“Despite boasting that he is the ‘president of peace,’ Donald Trump is threatening to lead the U.S. into three new wars,” Snider told the American Conservative. “All three would shred what is left of America’s claim to uphold the international order, and all of them would further endanger America’s standing in the targeted regions. All of them are also pointless because they are based on false premises.”
The U.S. has already bombed Iran, and Snider says Trump has threatened to “absolutely” and “without question” consider bombing it again if the Islamic Republic continues to enrich uranium. This, despite Trump having claimed to have “obliterated” the nation’s nuclear program, and that “suggestions otherwise are fake news.”
“The threat to go, once again, to war with Iran if it reconstitutes the civilian nuclear program … is especially real and worrisome,” said Snider, “since Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated as recently as last week that Iran’s damaged nuclear program is purely civilian and that ‘destroying buildings and factories will not create a problem for us, we will rebuild and with greater strength.’”
Snider dismisses the premise that Iran’s civilian nuclear program masks a frantic pursuit for a bomb as “false,” as well as the White House claim that war is necessary because the problem can’t be fixed through diplomacy.
Likewise, the Trump administration is building the largest military presence off the coast of Venezuela in decades, and it has notified Congress that the U.S. is in a formal “armed conflict” with Venezuela’s drug cartels. Trump also terminated all diplomatic outreach to Venezuela, and he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in addition to his lethal bombing of Venezuelan boats that likely violate international law.
And, like his looming war with Iran, Snider says Trump is lying about his maneuvering against Venezuela. Venezuelan drug cartels are not terrorist organizations that pose a threat to U.S. national security, as Trump claims, and Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro is not at the head of those cartels.
Trump has also singled out Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” for allegedly engaging in or tolerating “systematic, ongoing, (and) egregious violations of religious freedom.” Trump claims Christianity is “facing an existential threat in Nigeria” and he has instructed the Department of War to prepare for “possible action,” said Snider. Trump has also warned that that the U.S. may invade, “guns-a-blazing” to wipe the Islamic threat.
Snider maintained Trump's claims about Africa's most populous country are untrue. While Islamic and Christian military groups are killing each other (with more Muslim deaths according to recent counts), Nigeria is not a simple case of Christians facing an existential threat at the hand of Islamic terrorists.”
“Rather, there is violence against Christians and Muslims and there is violence that is motivated by land disputes and not by religion at all. War in Nigeria would be pointless,” said Snider.
All of Trump’s threats of war in Iran, Venezuela and Nigeria are all based on false premises, said Snider, and all put the nation “on the brink of blundering into yet more pointless wars and more tragic deaths.”
Read Snider's essay in the American Conservative at this link.