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Trump could actually do something pretty hilarious here which is blame the whole thing on Israel. Say that the over-escalation is their fault. They were completely unhinged (killing Iranian moderates, targeting energy infrastructure) and that the US was trying to get them to pull back. Say they're fed up and if Israel won't follow orders they can fight on their own. Just pull out of the war and say it's Israel's war if they want to keep going - we can't support them if they are not going to do what we tell them.
Whether the Iranian's gain enough face from this to break the escalation spiral I'm not sure. It would be a pretty big win form them - driving a wedge between Israel and US - but hard to say.
Looks pretty bad at the moment. Hard for anyone to walk back without losing face.
Such an action, while hilarious, probably dooms Republicans in the midterms to such an extent that it would be unlikely for Trump to actually try it.
Everything dooms the Republicans in the midterms.
That's not analysis. It's barely even sarcastic. I feel like every month there's 1-2 things that DOOM REPUBLICANS IN THE MIDTERMS and then the actual polling needle barely budges.
Maybe everything is just fully too stupid for mere "events" to make anyone update.
A sudden face-heel turn on Israel is a significantly larger action than anything you've seen in the paper up until now.
Betrayal is the most difficult move to execute in a democracy, because the people who support the betrayal rarely trust you afterward. The anti-war caucus will not trust Trump after he flips on Israel, while the zionist contingent will be demoralized and may stay home.
It's not really possible to fully model something like this because it's basically never happened before. The closest I can think of is maybe LBJ on civil rights, or HW Bush on taxes? But even those weren't nearly as clear value betrayals as this would be.
Yes, there is no way Republicans would accept a complete 180 like this. What next? Bombing Ira... oh, wait...
Big difference. Nobody likes Iran, a large contingent of American prots actively believe that supporting Israel is a religious obligation. I drive by (biblically ignorant, in my opinion) billboards reading "God blesses those who bless Israel" on a daily basis.
I suppose there's "blessed are the peacemakers" as a counter, but everyone ignores that anyway, except Pope Leo.
Also, I think Republican support for the Iran war is overstated. 80-85% of Republicans support the strikes in most polls I've seen, the equivalent numbers in Iraq were 95%+ (Lizardman range) for the first few years of the war. Losing 10-15% support from your own party is pretty bad, though it's just issue polling.
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