Why Dems are opposing Operation Epic Fury against Iran despite its successes
In one of the most unfortunate moral and strategic inversions in recent times, Democrats today seem to believe what is good for our national security is bad for the Democratic Party.Republicans have generally supported Democratic presidents in wartime: Kosovo 1999, Libya 2011, Yemen 2024 — all commenced without congressional authorization.Democrats have done mostly the same for Republican presidents: Iraq 1991 and 2003, Afghanistan 2001.But with Donald Trump and Iran, things are different: Democrats are in uniform, rageful opposition. They hector the president daily even amid combat operations, much to the delight of the Iranian mullahs, who avidly consume US media and thrive on US division. Given the nature of the nuclear threat, Democrats’ arguments against the war seem largely second-order: the war lacks legal authorization and clear purpose; the strikes are spiking oil prices and inflation.Liberal darling and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman seemed to say the silent part out loud about the liberal mindset: Though he doesn’t like the Iranian regime, he admitted, he doesn’t want to see Trump or Bibi Netanyahu getting credit for what would be a historic win for global peace.This sounds like Trump Derangement Syndrome, but I think something far deeper is at play.Democrats need Trump to fail in Iran — because if he succeeds, Democrats are exposed as unserious people with an unserious worldview and no coherent plan on national security that makes sense in the real world. For the last decade, the Democratic Party has been a party of appeasement and weakness in the face of Mideast terrorists. Barack Obama backed off his red-line threat in Syria in 2012. Joe Biden fled Afghanistan in a disastrous pullout in 2021. During their presidencies, both seemed to believe diplomacy was the only answer to every problem, even when it was clear diplomacy was failing. The appeasement/diplomacy-only mindset has a complex provenance: a left-wing conceit in its o...