Establishment media suddenly against war… because Trump

Mainstream media and Democrats are suddenly concerned about President Donald Trump’s hawkish advisers, questioning his administration’s policy on Iran and Venezuela. Has the US rediscovered peace, or is something else afoot?

“War is in the air,” Conor Friedersdorf intoned in the Atlantic on Friday, warning that high-ranking officials in the Trump administration are embarking on new wars of choice without congressional approval, “showing disregard for the Constitution and the public’s anti-war sentiments.”

“It is a perilous moment for the republic,” wrote Friedersdorf.

Not twenty minutes later, the Economist tweeted a leader article by its editors, lamenting the “collision course” of the US with Iran and urging new negotiations. The London-based magazine usually reflecting the opinions of transnational neoliberalism is suddenly alarmed at the prospect of a US war with Iran.

Yet just a few short months ago it was on board with Trump and his advisers as they sought regime change in Caracas, replacing its profile picture on social media with glamour shots of “interim president” of Venezuela Juan Guaido.

Earlier this week, a Democrat political action group MoveOn.org produced a supercut of statements from Trump, Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Iran sounding like President George W. Bush and his team on the eve of invading Iraq.

They never complained as vocally about the actual Iraq war, however – or the “humanitarian” wars by previous Democrat presidents. Democrats’ interest in peace with Iran might have something to do with the fact that the 2015 nuclear deal was promoted by Barack Obama as one of the major foreign policy successes of his presidency, which Trump has proceeded to shred along with much of Obama’s legacy.

Trouble is, Trump tore up the deal a year ago, and imposed sweeping sanctions six months ago, while all this hand-wringing just began recently.

Similarly, after four years of Saudi-led devastation of Yemen aided and abetted by the US military, Congress finally woke up from its slumber this year and voted against any further assistance to Riyadh.

Enough Republicans defected to the Democrat-led effort to get the joint resolution approved, but not enough to override Trump’s veto. In the end, everyone involved got to feel good about themselves, but it made no difference whatsoever to Yemen, which continued to burn.

Just remember, when Trump was threatening North Korea with “fire and fury” two years ago, the same people wringing their hands about Iran now accused him of dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric – only to turn around and denounce him again for “legitimizing” Kim Jong-un by meeting with him and seeking a peace deal for the Korean peninsula.

Previously, the only times the media and the Democrats would suspend their criticism of Trump and give him any positive coverage, however grudgingly, was when he deviated from his 2016 antiwar platform and launched airstrikes against Syria, escalated US involvement in Afghanistan, and backed regime change in Venezuela. Now even that is changing.

It can’t be the upcoming 2020 presidential election, because of the two dozen or so Democrats vying for the nomination only Tulsi Gabbard and Mike Gravel have laid out a principled antiwar platform, and their voices are being drowned out by a tide of identity politics.

One possibility that seems increasingly likely could be that the ‘Russiagate’ scandal has become the proverbial dead horse with the release of the Mueller report, and Trump’s critics that flogged it for years are now desperately seeking to stake out anything else as the moral high ground.

Nebojsa Malic

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