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Does Trump see an off-ramp for Iran's leaders and a historic tipping point?

Does Trump see an off-ramp for Iran's leaders and a historic tipping point?

The Hill6 hours ago

President Trump has come to possibly one of the most historic tipping points of our time — a tipping point he may have accelerated. A tipping point which, if things continue in this direction, might recalibrate the Middle East for the better for decades to come. The question then becomes: How best to increase the positive momentum?
One of the main reasons I believe Trump has been a successful and transformative president is because he brought decades of real-world business experience into the Oval Office for the first time in decades. Love them or not, Joe Biden was a 50-plus-years career politician; Barack Obama was a little-experienced local Chicago politician; George W. Bush was a 'nepo' politician who rode the coattails of his father; Bill Clinton was an academic and career politician; George H.W. Bush was a courageous war hero who then fell into a career of politics and diplomacy; Ronald Reagan was an actor and two-term governor of California; and so on and so on.
All these presidents were still creatures of politics and beholden to their particular party. Aside from being the first president in our lifetimes to bring decades of real-world business experience into the White House, Trump gleefully and very publicly cut the special interests' umbilical cords which connected so many presidents to the entrenched elites in D.C. Hence the creation of the 'Never Trump' movement and now a decade of 'Trump Derangement Syndrome.'
Trump does believe in 'America First.' To make that expression a reality, he is willing to break with the entrenched elites, outrage the legacy media, ignore academics who never worked in the real world, defy the 'globalist' leaders of other nations and, sometimes, challenge the thinking and perceptions of the MAGA movement. We are witnessing all those Trump tactics with regard to the latest Israel-Iran conflict.
In the business world, you are often faced with 'buy,' 'sell' or 'sit this one out' opportunities. While building his global business empire, Trump has engaged in such negotiations thousands of times. More often than not, he acted upon instincts honed by decades of success.
Many MAGA supporters — and quite possibly Trump himself — initially viewed the current Israel-Iran war as a 'sit this one out' situation. But Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities may have created an unplanned tipping point for Trump towards much greater peace and stability in the region, while strengthening the national security of the U.S.
Going back to before to his first presidential campaign in 2015, Trump had long condemned the Iraq war, the tragic loss of life and the neocons and hawks who incessantly called for that invasion. We saw that same conviction from Trump when it came to the war in Ukraine. He wanted peace and was desperate to stop the useless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of human beings.
During his decades of being a master business negotiator, Trump also knew that it was wise — and was often the key tactic — to offer the CEO and upper management of the company he was dealing with a face-saving off ramp. Trump may now sense that the leadership of Iran is desperate for such an off ramp.
There is no doubt that Trump believes Iran to be a rogue state directly responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of American soldiers; of controlling the most ruthless and dangerous terrorist organizations in the world; of openly calling for the annihilation of America; and which is directly destabilizing the Middle East, while causing the deaths and suffering of literally millions of people in the region.
But that is the truth of the present and the past. What if one were presented with the rarest of opportunities — to affect the truth of the future? What if, via the actions of others, certain policies and happenstance, you were gifted a window to rid the world of a truly evil entity capable of killing millions? But it was a window quickly and maybe permanently slamming shut.
No president in our lifetimes has pushed to keep Americans out of harm's way or for global peace more than Trump. He owes no one an apology nor an explanation.
Trump does want peace — but knows peace and freedom come at a cost. In his first term, he saw the window to eliminate ISIS and jumped through it to crush the vilest terrorist organization the world has ever known. With regard to Iran, Trump ordered the elimination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a man directly responsible for the killing and maiming of countless American troops.
Businessman Trump has operated with the 'carrot and stick' method his entire adult life. Usually while flying by the seat of his pants.
Trump created the 'America First' movement. Now, his instincts may be telling him he has a fleeting sliver of time to create an 'Iran First' movement for the long-suffering people of that nation — a people yearning to live in peace, who hate those who have turned their nation into a murderous theocracy. Iranians are poised to act, but they need a tipping point to give them cover not to be slaughtered in the streets if they rise as one to reclaim their country.
Trump may be about to give them that tipping point.
Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official.

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Less than 20% of troops deployed to L.A. are on the ground. A former commander calls that ‘awful'
Less than 20% of troops deployed to L.A. are on the ground. A former commander calls that ‘awful'

San Francisco Chronicle​

time34 minutes ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

Less than 20% of troops deployed to L.A. are on the ground. A former commander calls that ‘awful'

Less than 20% of the nearly 5,000 National Guard and Marine troops deployed to Los Angeles were actually on the ground in the city as of earlier this week, according to text messages by a state official with direct knowledge of staffing. That level is so low a former National Guard commander called it 'awful' in an interview with the Chronicle and questioned whether the $134 million deployment is justified. Of the 4,946 National Guard members and Marines deployed by President Donald Trump to Los Angeles in response to protests of immigration raids, just 978 were in the city, the state official with firsthand knowledge of National Guard staffing levels wrote Wednesday in the text messages obtained by the Chronicle. 'Federalized National Guard and USMC forces are grossly underutilized,' the state official wrote to another state official. 'That's at 19.77% utilization rate. Insane.' The officials were discussing how the deployment was pulling soldiers away from the National Guard's wildfire mitigation work. The Chronicle is not naming the officials in accordance with its policy on anonymous sources. The former National Guard commander, Brig. Gen. Peter Cross, told the Chronicle that the less than 20% rate is consistent with what he's heard in his role as president of the National Guard Association of California. Even accounting for soldiers working in shifts, he said, soldiers should be working at a rate much closer to 100%. 'It's awful. … So far as I understand, we're not even approaching, under that shifting model, full utilization of the soldiers,' he said. 'That's extremely concerning to me as a former military commander." Democrats have been saying for weeks that the deployment is a waste of money. 'You really have to use the National Guard as a last resort,' said Cross, a retired military police officer who was deployed to the 1992 Los Angeles riots and has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. 'This is literally the most expensive option we as a society, as a country, can utilize.' Many of the troops deployed in Southern California in response to the protests are stationed at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, where the military has constructed massive tents to house them. The base is about 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles in Orange County. It typically is used for the National Guard and Army Reserves. Trump began federalizing National Guard troops, who are normally under governors' control, nearly two weeks ago in response to protests over aggressive immigration raids in Los Angeles. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass opposed the deployment, saying that local and state police were sufficiently staffed to handle the protests. Trump argued that the protests had gotten out of hand. 'If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can't do their jobs, which everyone knows they can't, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!' the president wrote in a post on his social media website on Saturday, June 7. Shortly after the post, Trump issued an executive order federalizing 2,000 members of the National Guard for 60 days to respond to protests. The order does not specify that the troops be deployed in California or Los Angeles. Trump has since called up additional National Guard members and has also deployed 700 Marines to respond. The protests in Los Angeles, which grew after Trump deployed the troops, have since calmed significantly. Earlier this week, Bass lifted a curfew she had imposed last week for the area of downtown that has seen the most protests. Newsom has sued to regain control of the National Guard troops. He argues that Trump's federalizing of the troops is illegal and amounts to a dangerous overreach by the president. On Thursday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump could retain control of the Guard troops while legal challenges proceed in lower courts. 'This brazen abuse of power by a sitting President inflamed a combustible situation putting our people, our officers, and the National Guard at risk,' Newsom said in a speech several days after Trump deployed the troops. 'When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard, he made that order apply to every state in this nation. … California may be first — but it clearly won't end here. Other states are next.' Most of the 300 National Guard members who had been working on a vegetation management team called Joint Task Force Rattlesnake have been taken off the wildfire prevention work as part of the Los Angeles deployment, according to Newsom's office. Newsom has also criticized the deployment for moving National Guard troops who had been doing drug interdiction work at the border. 'You just pulled National Guard I placed at the border who were stopping fentanyl smuggling,' Newsom wrote on social media in response to a post from a Trump administration official. 'Now they're twiddling their thumbs in LA.' Lt. Carl Trujillo, a spokesperson for the California Military Department, referred all questions about the deployment to U.S. Army North Public Affairs. He said that when National Guard troops were deployed to assist with wildfire recovery in Los Angeles earlier this year, they were stationed at the Rose Bowl and a base in Malibu, not the training base in Los Alamitos. He said the base is not typically used to station large numbers of troops for extended periods of time because it is relatively small. U.S. Army North Public Affairs declined to respond to questions about staffing levels and whether it was typical that less than 20% of the deployed troops would be used in Los Angeles on any given day, citing security concerns. The office said that the National Guard troops are being housed at Los Alamitos, while the Marines are located at Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, also in Orange County. Photos posted online by the military show the tents at the base in Los Alamitos, with some housing rows upon rows of cots and folding tables set up like a cafeteria. Images taken by a Chronicle photographer from a helicopter that flew near the base show multiple massive tents and other temporary structures that have been erected on the base. Other photos obtained by the Chronicle from inside the base also show soldiers in fatigues walking around the area as well as construction projects with cranes and wooden pallets. A nearby resident, who declined to give his name, said he has a good view of the base from his backyard. He said it's common for troops to stage there for training. He said troops had camped in smaller tents when they arrived, but now are staying in a massive tent that he estimated is longer than a football field but about the same width. The resident described the National Guard troops as 'wonderful neighbors' even if they make noise early in the morning. Reached by phone Thursday afternoon, he said he could hear troops marching down the middle of a road near his home. Cross said it's not surprising that National Guard soldiers would be stationed at the base in Los Alamitos and that it's normal protocol to build massive tents to house soldiers. But he noted that the activity at the base underscores why deploying the Guard is also the most expensive option available in a situation like this. It also takes a personal toll on the soldiers who are deployed, who must leave their families, their jobs and their educational pursuits behind. Typically the Guard should be deployed only when all local law enforcement options are exhausted. That doesn't seem to be the case here, he said. 'This melodramatic talk about people worried about the military shooting someone or being more violent than is necessary — I'm just not worried about that because of the training we have,' he said. 'I'm just skeptical whether we were needed.' In his current role with the California National Guard, Cross oversees the Youth and Community Program, which runs educational programs for struggling teens. The programs have continued to function, he said, even as many of the soldiers who work on them have been deployed. But if the deployment is still happening in a few weeks when the new school session starts, he's worried he'll have to turn more troubled teens away. 'When you're called up, you're pulled up from your employer, from your life,' Cross said. 'You want it to have value, you want it to have purpose, and if you're sitting in your armory, not tasked, that will erode your morale.'

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