Legendary reporter Dan Rather had nothing but scorn for Trump’s failure in the Iran war, as he continues to make demands of the Islamic Republic and they appear uninterested in engaging.
Rather, writing for his Steady Substack, identified the real reason this was inevitable all along.
The president, he wrote, appears on the brink of giving up on the war entirely, with no deal on nuclear weapons, and “may be forced to leave Iran in charge of the Strait of Hormuz and to supply them hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild.” Such a conclusion would be, from a military perspective, “one of the most catastrophic failures by a president in American history.”
“Trump is terrible at so many things, but one of his worst attributes is his inability to understand — or disinterest in — consequences,” Rather wrote. “Consequences are often messy and inconvenient. When making almost any decisions, Trump ignores them. At his peril. And ours.” Virtually “everything he does,” said Rather, is done without any regard for consequences, and while the outcome varies, “almost all cost the American taxpayer.”
The whole misadventure with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, from choosing contractors unqualified to work on the monument, to a botched prosecution for “vandalism” that doesn’t seem to have happened, is a miniaturized version of the same mismanagement that has brought the Iran war to the brink, Rather argued.
Troops, too, are now suffering, said Rather, as reporting indicates the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln has descended into appalling conditions, with “food shortages, broken toilets, moldy showers, and a lack of hot water and laundry facilities” for the servicemembers prosecuting Trump’s war.
Ultimately, Rather concluded, “For a man obsessed with his legacy, Trump has played fast and loose with his choices. He hasn’t considered the long-range consequences of so many of his decisions for himself, or his party, or, most importantly, for the country.”
“With this in mind, Americans may want to pay especially close attention in coming days to news of the war,” he added. “Often it takes many sources to piece together the big picture. Major developments like the ones in this article often get pushed aside for the latest clickbait from Trump and his allies desperate to change the subject.”