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<\/a><\/p>\nby\u00a0Patrick J. Buchanan<\/p>\n
Did President Donald Trump approve of this? \u2026If it is not Trump pushing for confrontation and war with Iran, who is?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Last week, it was Venezuela in America\u2019s gun sights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile a peaceful solution is desirable, military action is possible,\u201d thundered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. \u201cIf that\u2019s what is required, that\u2019s what the United States will do.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Bolton tutored Vladimir Putin on the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine: \u201cThis is our hemisphere. It\u2019s not where the Russians ought to be interfering.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Venezuela\u2019s army decided not to rise up and overthrow Nicholas Maduro, by Sunday night, it was Iran that was in our gun sights.<\/p>\n
Bolton ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln, its carrier battle group and a bomber force to the Mideast \u201cto send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.\u201d<\/p>\n
What \u201cattack\u201d was Bolton talking about?<\/p>\n
According to Axios, Israel had alerted Bolton that an Iranian strike on U.S. interests in Iraq was imminent.<\/p>\n
Flying to Finland, Pompeo echoed Bolton\u2019s warning:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen escalatory actions from the Iranians, and \u2026 we will hold the Iranians accountable for attacks on American interests. \u2026 (If) these actions take place, if they do by some third-party proxy, whether that\u2019s a Shia militia group or the Houthis or Hezbollah, we will hold the \u2026 Iranian leadership directly accountable for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taken together, the Bolton-Pompeo threats add up to an ultimatum that any attack by Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, or Iran-backed militias \u2014 on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE or U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria or the Gulf states \u2014 will bring a U.S. retaliatory response on Iran itself.<\/p>\n
Did President Donald Trump approve of this? For he appears to be going along. He has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions. Last week, he canceled waivers he had given eight nations to let them continue buying Iranian oil.<\/p>\n
Purpose: Reduce Iran\u2019s oil exports, 40% of GDP, to zero, to deepen an economic crisis that is already expected to cut Iran\u2019s GDP this year by 6%.<\/p>\n
Trump has also designated Iran a terrorist state and the Republican Guard a terrorist organization, the first time we have done that with the armed forces of a foreign nation. We don\u2019t even do that with North Korea.<\/p>\n
Iran responded last Tuesday by naming the U.S. a state sponsor of terror and designating U.S. forces in the Middle East as terrorists.<\/p>\n