The Republican president has previously referred to fallen American service personnel as “suckers” and “losers.” He has never served in the military, having in fact dodged the Vietnam War draft on five occasions. The last of those owed to a bone spur diagnosis. It’s a condition that usually affects elderly individuals. He was 22 at the time.
Trump has similarly threatened to invade U.S. allies Panama, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, and Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a fellow NATO member.
The MAGA president’s growing, campaign-promise-busting appetite for military engagement also comes amid his bitter disappointment at being passed over for last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, despite a concerted public and private push by his allies. It was previously awarded to his Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama.
In a letter regarding that snub, Trump wrote to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in January that “considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.”
The Norwegian government is not affiliated with the Nobel Committee, which decides independently to whom it will grant its awards. Trump’s claim to have stopped eight wars remains highly disputed.
An estimated 15/20% of Iranians are hardcore supporters of the theocratic regime that Trumpstein says he wants to remove. That 15/20% is violent and well-armed enough that they can effectively keep the rest of the population repressed. And from what it looks like right now, even if their ability to project power outside of Iran has been hit, they still have that power internally (and dismantling it would require the US and Israel to put boots on the ground and have many more casualties for a much longer time than they are willing to).
So, it apparently only takes 15/20% of violent, well armed fanatics to hold a whole country captive. Probably less, with good surveillance tech. Now let’s do the MAGA math and see who should be afraid of a coup…