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Will the President Get Dumped? His Romance with War Will Not End Well [1]
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Date: 2025-06-22
Emperors and Pompous and Arrogant rulers have always loved war. In democratic nations, starting wars is often an effort to pump up the leader’s sagging popularity as they seek to placate increasingly dissatisfied voters to maintain their support. They need a way to distract people from their otherwise unpopular policies.
More traditionally in England which is a less democratic empire, the God and Country motto carried tremendous weight and significance. But the US, while on the surface rejecting the English imperial system, has echoes inherited from the British love of empire. There is still a residual desire which emerges periodically for world control, and cultural, economic, and militaristic dominance.
The US has imperialism light.
President’s, especially right-wing presidents, often love war. Reagan loved bullying the tiny island of Grenada which was an important factor in pushing his percentage approval ratings from the 40’s in late 1983 to the upper 50’s in late 1984. The elder Bush fought a limited and some say successful war with Saddam to free Kuwait resulting in an approval rating of over 80% for a few months in 1991 when the war was over.
President George W. Bush was able to gain a popularity index of over 80% after 9/11. He maintained his considerable popular support averaging the low 70’s when he later declared war on Iraq.
He was also then able to get reelected based on the war in Iraq. He sustained an approval rating that hovered around 50% and won the election.
But these gains were temporary
As Iraq became an expensive quagmire with no long-term plan to end the war or manage a withdrawal, and no WMDs to be found, Bush’s final approval ratings cratered to around 25% in 2008. These are some of the lowest approval ratings of any president in history. Nixon had similarly low approval ratings in the low to middle 20’s when he resigned after Watergate.
The Iraq War was George W. Bush’s undoing.
Going into an open-ended war can be a calamitous decision in the long run with most of the advantages being concentrated on the front end when the war is begun.
Following Bush’s war, no wonder Obama had two successful Presidential elections as a result of people’s disgust with Bush’s sad intelligence failures, and his chaotic handling of the Iraq war effort.
But the powerful Commander-in-chief role is just too tempting to adopt for a narcissist President who has high hopes of becoming dictator-in-chief. The strongman image created by sending planes to bomb Middle Eastern countries is addictive like heroine to such a leader.
A distraction from a series of policy blunders involving shifting tariffs, secret police, marine deployment, DOGE vengeance operations, failed promises about economic improvements, and incompetents running the federal government is needed. Taken together, these failed policies requires a powerful distraction. Going to war is ideal for this purpose.
Let’s see how starting or supercharging another war in the Middle East works out this time.
The President’s unthinking and uninformed supporters can be trusted to forget his previous anti-war, America First, and isolationist promises. They will also forget Republican’s Iraq war failures after 9/11 and the WMD lie.
MAGA folks will happily go back to the role of the US being the dreaded “world’s policeman” forgetting that they ever rejected such a position. One might ask how so many people could be victims of memory loss.
Perhaps we can attribute their change of heart to a collective form of early onset dementia. This is as good as any other explanation for their overwhelming, irrational loyalty to a President who doesn’t seem to be able to make up his mind about his most basic policies.
We attacked and are in a hot war with a country almost four times the size of Iraq. Iran has almost twice the population of Iraq and has much more sophisticated arms than did Iraq. Iran can easily close the Strait of Hormuz putting a stranglehold on much of the world’s oil supply thus drawing the US further into a protracted war.
Of course the Pentagon says the “US doesn’t seek war with Iran” but they have a funny way of showing it. The claim that there was an imminent threat to the US by Iran is even more ludicrous.
We can see from the Iraq War that dealing with a Middle Eastern country that is much larger and more populous than our failed efforts in Iraq is not going to be easy. The President as we have seen from his recent military parade is not a competent manager of even moderately complex military situations. He has also chosen a famously inept though loyal staff of generals and advisors.
Some central figures in the defense department such as Pete Hegseth are from right-wing media outlets and were chosen for their shills in shaping public perception as the President did in his reality TV show “The Apprentice”. When reality looks bad, only skilled illusionists can maintain the support of voters. Actual management skills are believed to be unnecessary.
The President will find it more difficult to talk his way out of his future obvious failures in war just as he has for his multitude of failed DAY ONE promises. Even he will likely run out of excuses.
He has gambled on success, but the cards are stacked against him as they were against Bush in the extended Iraq War. He has miscalculated. His protecting Israel is not near as important to voters as protecting the US population from (nonexistent) WMDs in Iraq. Protecting Israel will not suffice as a reason for another extended war in the Middle East.
The two situations are in no way comparable in terms of US interests, but the President will no doubt pretend that they are virtually identical. He cannot begin to count on the same level of support as there was following the 9/11 attacks.
I predict the President, a Reality TV star and a failed businessmen will come to a tragic end when he chooses war as a means of creating and maintaining long term support for himself and his policies.
It will be interesting to watch his support drain away and to then watch his reaction to his extreme reduction in popularity as occurred with George W. Bush.
What remains when a populist President (who defines himself almost exclusively by the adulation of supporters) becomes unpopular? An empty blue suit and an overly long red tie.
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