Could Trump be saying this to appease the voters as he campaigns for a second term? The American people dont want another war.. American mothers dont want to again be shipping their sons home in body bags in massive numbers.
I fear that if Trump continues his present course of action he will only elevate the situation to dangerous levels. Leave the muslims to sort out their own problems. Have an impartial body police the Straits of Hormuz. Trump's belligerence can only bring in the Ruskies to help their ally Iran. And God forbid what that could lead to.
Trump has been saying this from the beginning. One of the main reasons why he didn't (and doesn't) have the support of the neocons in the Republican Party is that they didn't think they could depend on him to continue the endless wars.
As I said, @Ken Anderson, I think he will wage the quick in-and-out wars should he get into one, not the endless dragging on forever war, such as G.W. Bush.
Hey Shirley, Iran "sat back" and let Russia, China, England, France, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea develop nuclear weapons, didn't they? Hal
I know that you are more well informed than that Hal. Iran, as a country is younger than the U.S. It was a gift to Hitler and has suffered two whole regime changes since the fall of Germany in WWII. I’m not defending what the leaders of Iran are doing (and neither will most Persians) but they are trying to establish the country as something a little more than a cash cow for those seeking oil. Prior to the takeover by the Mullahs, Iran was pretty much protected by the west and traded freely with the world so why would they need to produce nuclear warheads? It’s a given that there will always be a war between the tribes even under the Mullahs but until the Iraq debacle, we had very little to do with who hated who and sided very little with either side. Even now, the old guard Persians are still certain that the fall of the twin towers in New York was an act of war produced by Saudi Arabians.
We will know by Monday if Trump is a strong President, or a repeat of Obama. He inherited issues from both Iran and North Korea. North Korea has not attacked anything American, while Iran has now done so. If Trump does not respond in a powerful way, North Korea will certainly call his bluff as well. Perhaps China will as well. I suspect that if Trump soesn't have some kind of attack in retaliation for the drone shoot-down, Iran will then perhaps start sinking tankers and Trump's run for a second term will be over before it gets well underway. Any of the current Democrat candidates that are currently running will mean the end of America as we know it. I don't know if there are any other candidates--Democrat or Republican--who will be able to lead us out of the current mess.
@Hal Pollner , since I'm sure @Bobby Cole is much more knowledgeable than I about the Middle East, I will defer to his reply. @Don Alaska , President Trump said that he didn't approve a retaliatory strike because he was told that it would take 150 Iranian lives. I tend to agree with him. Is one drone worth 150 human lives? I don't know what a suitable response would be but I'm sure he is giving it a lot of thought.
One problem is Iran has tentacles everywhere. Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, ... They could start terrorist attacks in any of those countries where our troops are located. That could go on a long time after a quick get in and get out strategy. Our allies were not happy with us pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement. They may not be compliant with further sanctions we try to impose on Iran.
Nature abhors a vacuum. When the Soviet Union fell we created one. We are dealing with problems that in my mind were left by Britannia..They cut split divided without regard to natural religious and traditional borders. After the first World War they walked away and left a shattered empire. Nature has found away to fill that void,with the cultural wars that we are fighting now, where apparent victory is in fact defeat! There is an Eastern coalition building against us,managed by Russia,financed by China,fought by naive zealots. There is not the recognition, the will, or the provocation to start it now, but one day we will face it and it's gonna be horrible.
There are certainly ways to retaliate without killing innocent civilians. I don't consider civilians who work for the military there to be "innocent". Taking out the antiaircraft installations would have apparently cost lives, but without a strong response the Iranians military will simply escalate until we concede to their demands. Many of our "allies" want to appease Iran because they don't want the price of oil to rise for them. They are for appeasement for "peace in our time", just as Neville Chamberlain and many in the U.S. supported appeasement of the Nazi regime in the late 1930s. The Europeans were war-weary then and remembered the fiasco that was WWI, but the appeasement ended up costing more lives in the end, especially the millions of civilians who were killed. It was the first modern war in which more civilians were killed than armed combatants.
As far as I can see, he has acted reasonably. In a normal environment, when the president isn't constantly surrounded by people willing to leak anything that might embarrass him, the public would not have been aware of any second-guessing, but I'm sure it happens. Weighing the loss of an expensive drone, but no American lives, against the lives of a hundred and fifty Iranians, is commendable, in my opinion. Given that only a few days ago, someone in the US government decided to attack Russia's power grid, possibly against the wishes and knowledge of our president, it seems reasonable that Trump might be willing to believe that someone in the Iranian government might also be acting on his own. Whatever the facts behind the Russian power grid, Trump is surely aware that there are people within his own government who are willing to take actions without his knowledge or consent, yet we're supposed to believe everything done by a Russian is at the personal behest of Vladamir Putin, and that no Iranian has ever done anything without it being an expressed order by the Supreme Leader of Iran. Whether the Iranian leadership was behind it or not, retaliation would be a reasonable response but I have no problem whatsoever with our president deciding that warfare isn't necessarily the best response. There is also the fact that many of the same people who are now criticizing Trump for holding off on action against Iran would be ranting against him for acting rashly had he not reconsidered. Then there are those, within his own party, who want nothing more than an endless war in the Middle East, and will lash out at him for being weak whenever he seeks peace.