[Yardstick]

No American president — not Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush fils, or Obama — had understood the key to the Middle East: bring down the Islamic Republic.

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Because the State Department had so deeply entrenched the notion that Iran was off limits. It was like an unchallengeable doctrine. But along comes Trump who doesn’t accept the premise and is willing to turn over apple carts.

I have to assume the State Department’s deference to Iran is the result of internal leftist influence. The left sees the US as the bad guy in the US/Iran relationship. They’ve seen it that way since we practiced some regional realpolitik with Mosaddeg back at the height of the Cold War.

[xrmusn]

Carter definitely empowered them with his ‘putting his cardigan on and hiding in the Rose Garden with Amy’ and the way ‘he’ botched the Iranian Hostage Situation.
That fiasco in the desert with the Helicopters and the busload of civilians etc could have been straight out of a Crosby/Hope ‘Road To’ movie or a Laurel/Hardy or Abbot/Costello masterpiece.

President Reagan ‘put them in their place’ when he went into office BUT - IMNSHO - he ‘blew’ it during the ‘Marine Barracks at Airport’ fiasco.

We had at least one BB sitting off the coast of Lebanon and once the snipers started firing at the rescuers at the airport, NO ONE in the world would have ‘blamed’ us for taking the NJ and making flat land out of the ‘snipers hill’.

The more you allow the troglodytes to get away with, the bolder they get.

It was ‘predicted’ that the ENTIRE Middle East would have made a great parking lot.

Remember Israel used to take care of ‘Iran/Iraq problems’ but WE sort of put the kibosh on them.

[T Ruth]

I have to assume the State Department’s deference to Iran is the result of internal leftist influence.

Don't discount the possibility of bribes.