Ron Paul: Congress Fiddles While Trump Lurches Toward War On Iran – OpEd
Congress, and particularly the Democrat-controlled House of
Representatives, seems determined to see the end of the Trump
Administration before the 2020 vote. Although House Speaker Pelosi
claims she is not seeking impeachment, she’s accusing the president of
“covering up” something. However, she won’t say what until she can do
more investigating.
But Trump’s opponents on both sides of the
Congressional aisle don’t seem so enthusiastic about challenging the
president when he actually does abuse his Constitutional authority to
pursue a more aggressive policy overseas.
Late last week, for
example, President Trump declared a national security “emergency”
brought about by unspecified “Iranian malign activity” – a “loophole”
allowing him to bypass Congressional review of some $8 billion in US
weapons to be sold to Saudi Arabia.
Congress had been reluctant
to approve yet more arms sales to Saudi Arabia after the President
vetoed a bi-partisan House and Senate-approved bill requiring the US to
end its military support for the Saudi war of aggression against Yemen.
What might this new Iran “emergency” be? As with the lead-up to the
Iraq war, the Administration claims important secret intelligence — but
of course we have to just trust them. From what we have heard from the
Administration, it looks pretty flimsy. Rear Admiral Michael Gilday, the
director of the Joint Staff, has outright claimed that the so-called
“sabotage” of four container ships at port in the UAE is the doing of
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. But even Abu Dhabi didn’t claim
Iranian involvement in the mysterious incident.
Could it have been a false flag?
Admiral Gilday also claims, without providing proof, that the recent
firing of a small rocket in the general vicinity of the US Embassy in
Iraq is the work of the Iranians. “We believe with a high degree of
confidence that this [recent attacks] stems back to the leadership in
Iran at the highest levels,” he said.
What would Iran gain by
shooting off an insignificant rocket, exposing itself to US massive
retaliation with no gain whatsoever? They don’t say.
The Trump
Administration has been lacking any coherent foreign policy strategy for
some time. It often seems the President is fighting more with his own
appointees than with his opponents on Capitol Hill. As soon as he
announces that ISIS is defeated and US troops must come home, his
employees like National Security Advisor John Bolton “clarify” Trump’s
statements to mean that troops are staying. Trump goes to Hanoi to cut a
deal with North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un and Bolton shows up with a poison
pill that blows up the deal.
Bolton announced plans for 120,000
US troops to the Middle East to help push the war on Iran he’s been
hocking for 20 or so years. Then we heard it was 10,000. Then 1,500, of
which 600 are already there.
Whether Trump is on board or not,
his Administration is clearly dragging the US into conflict with Iran.
While some Members remind the president that he does not have
Constitutional authority to attack Iran without approval, that argument
has not been very effective in deterring presidents thus far.
If Congress really wanted to rein in an out-of-control president, they
have plenty of opportunity in his bogus “national emergency” declaration
and his saber rattling toward Iran. But if asserting Constitutional
authority means Congress acts to pull-back US militarism overseas,
suddenly there is a great bipartisan silence. They’d rather impeach
Trump over his rude Tweets than over his stomping on the Constitution.
This article was published by RonPaul Institute.