The Washington media will be busy declaring its feelings about whether President Trump was, in fact, “presidential” in his statements Wednesday on Iran, or whether he “struck the right tone.” But none of that matters.
The only thing that matters is that we still don’t know if we’re screwed here.
If we’re screwed, it’s certainly not Trump’s fault. He had no choice but to retaliate for the Iran-backed attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. But how he handles things going forward is a very delicate question.
Trump said at the White House Wednesday morning that he wanted our Western allies to ramp up pressure on Iran and that the United States would immediately impose new economic sanctions on the country. We don’t know how Tehran is going to react to that, but react it certainly will.
It looks like for now, we’re at least putting off any military conflict, and that’s good news for people who would rather we not get sucked into another war in the Middle East, a region which, outside of Israel, seems to care about nothing but death and destruction.
But we don’t know. Trump gave a fine speech at the White House, but that doesn’t change the very, very delicate situation we’re in.
