“While Washington is fixated on President Trump’s tweets, antics, lies and Russiagate, the administration is ramping up a stealth escalation of our military involvement across the Middle East. As Naomi Klein warns, Trump’s “rolling shock of the chaos and spectacle” distracts from radical actions both at home and abroad. Across the Middle East, the administration drives the United States ever further into wars without end, increasing the dangers of direct military confrontation with Russia and Iran, with little awareness and no mandate from the American people. This is a recipe for calamity.”
Robert Reich’s reaction:
While he deflects our attention with endless lies and chaos, Trump is quietly taking America deeper into war:
1. The U.S. fired 23 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of chemical weapons against civilians.
2. U.S. forces are bombing Iranian-supported militia forces moving forward in southern Syria, and shot down a Syrian jet flying over Syrian airspace.
3. The administration will dispatch 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan, plus 400 to Syria.
4. Russia has ended coordination with the U.S. to avoid air collisions, and announced that U.S. planes flying west of the Euphrates would be targeted.
5. Meanwhile, Trump is escalating support for the Saudi air assault on Yemen. Already 17 million Yemenis suffer lack of food, while a cholera epidemic there infects another child every 35 seconds.
6. And Trump has declared that China has failed to influence North Korea. His next move is anyone's guess.
Congress has given over foreign policy to Trump, and Trump has given it over to the generals -- a deadly and dangerous gamble.
Published on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 by The Washington Post
By Katrina Vanden Heuvel
