Wag the Dog?
It goes without saying that General Qasem Soleimani, the late head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard-Force Quds was a despicable, blood-thirsty terrorist. (It should be noted that there are several different spellings used for Soleimani - “Qassem” and “Qasem” “Soleimani” and “Suleimani.” Take your pick.)
Shortly after his assassination this past Saturday via an American drone strike near the Baghdad International Airport, President Trump called Soleimani “the number one terrorist anywhere in the world.” I won’t argue with Mr. Trump’s assessment; Soleimani’s drone-induced death - along with Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and at least 10 other people - is not being mourned anywhere in the civilized world. Whether Soleimani’s being taken out will result in fewer or greater terrorist attacks against Western targets is yet to be realized.
Nonetheless, the Iranian Tasnim News Agency quoted a senior Revolutionary Guards commander as saying Iran will punish Americans wherever they are within reach of the Islamic Republic. Additionally, General Gholamali Abuhamzeh, the commander of the Guards in the southern province of Kerman (where Soleimani was born 62 years ago) raised the prospect of possible attacks on ships in the Gulf. Wasting not a moment, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed the deputy commander of the Quds Force, Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani as Solemani’s replacement. In a statement, the Supreme Leader said that the program of the Quds Force "will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor."
Needless to say, Trump’s order to take out Soleimani has caused one hell of lot of press - both here at home and around the globe, some of it both negative and threatening, some of it both positive and questioning. By and large, Republicans and Trump’s Israeli “amen corner” see in the assassination an act of strategic daring - the fulfillment of a political promise. Democrats and many of America’s Western allies are up in arms; Democrats, because the drone attack was accomplished without a single one of them being given a heads-up; our Western allies for pretty much the same reason. They see in the president’s action the reemergence of a “go-it-alone” cowboy tactic, hauntingly reminiscent of the Reagan years. There is also a widespread belief that the attack was predictable; a “wag the dog” strategy meant to divert attention from ‘45’s impeachment, while putting- a lethal arrow in his reelection quiver.
For those who have been out of touch for the past many years, Wag the Dog is a 1997 Barry Levinson satirical dramady starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Ann Heche in which shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal. The concept - if not the specific idiom - has been around since the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans. They called it deus ex machina, literally, “God from the machine.” In their ancient dramas and comedies, whenever a plot had hit a serious snag, the playwright would literally have a person or thing hoisted suddenly and unexpectedly onto the stage by means of a crane, thereby providing an artificial or contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty.
Republicans, of course, aren’t the only ones who have been suspected of wagging the dog. Back in August 1998, three days after President Bill (“I did not have sex with that woman”) Clinton’s unsatisfying apology to the nation, and on the same day that Monica Lewinsky’s returned to the grand jury, the U.S. military struck in Afghanistan and Sudan, causing skeptics to ask: Are they truly a response to the Kenya-Tanzania bombings of American embassies, or a manufactured crisis to divert public attention from President Clinton’s personal troubles? Or, as one reporter asked then-Defense Secretary William Cohen at a news briefing on the attacks, isn’t there a “striking resemblance” to “Wag the Dog”? Cohen, forced to address the issue, said, in essence, of course not.
The employment of a “wag the dog” (or deus ex machina) strategy antedates the Clintons and Trumps of this world by nearly a century. In the last days of the 19th century, it was William Randolph Hearst employing the “You provide the photographs, I’ll provide the war” which launched America in the Spanish-American War. Who benefited from this egregious Yellow Journalism? President William McKinley and his soon-to-become successor, Theodore Roosevelt.
Indeed, there’s nothing new under the sun.
The political value of “Wagging the dog” is certainly not unknown to Donald Trump or his advisers. Back in 2011-12 - long before the real estate mogul entered the world of hardcore politics - Trump repeatedly predicted that then-President Barack Obama would start a war between the U.S. and Iran to help secure a second term in the White House. “Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate,” then reality-television star Donald Trump said in a video uploaded to YouTube in November 2011. “I believe that he will attack Iran sometime prior to the election because he thinks that’s the only way he can get elected. Isn’t it pathetic?” Asked about this in early 2020, now-President Trump has been afflicted with a raging case of amnesia . . .
When asked by members of the press the obvious question “why now?” regarding Suleimani’s assassination, the POTUS and members of his administration said that they were acting on incontrovertible intelligence that the the Iranians were planning on a series of deadly terrorist attacks against American interests and troops in the near future. This is less than reassuring, and for a couple of reasons:
From almost day one of his administration, ‘45 has roundly and loudly denigrated the American intelligence community, saying that he knows far, far more than they do. Now he is relying upon their findings?
That despite Suleimani being the leader of one of the planet’s most menacing, best organized terrorist forces, his leadership was not essential; the Quds Force’s overarching plans and grand design will continue with or without him.
Despite being in office for nearly 3 years, ‘45 has never developed anything approaching a “grand strategy” - when it comes to Iran. To be fair, Trump isn’t singularly responsible for this lack. Although there have certainly been “topple the Iranian mullahs” hawks in the government ever since the fall of the Shah (John Bolton being a prime example), nobody has developed an overall understanding of America’s goals, tactics or end game.
So, answering the questions “Why now?” and “What now?” are as elusive and unknowable as ever. That’s a large part of the problem of having a Presidency-via-Twitter. Being limited to precisely 280 keystrokes per Tweet presents obvious difficulties. When one is telling the world precisely the what and why of leading America, the task is impossible. In a Saturday night Tweet-storm ‘45 wrote:
“. . . if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets," the U.S. has targeted 52 Iranian sites including — "some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD
On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared to walk back Trump's statements on ABC's This Week. "We'll behave lawfully. We'll behave inside the system. We always have, and we always will," he said on Sunday morning. That evening, ‘45 doubled down on his threat, telling reporters "They're allowed to kill our people. They're allowed to torture and maim our people. They're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people," And we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way." The next day, Defense Secretary Mike Esper indicated that U.S. forces would carry out the president’s threat, saying, “We will follow the laws of armed conflict.” In discussing this particular aspect of ‘45’s unbalanced threats with my good friend and esteemed colleague, Professor Emeritus Gil Klajman (a truly wise and worldly man) he posed the question: “Who do you think put the idea of attacking precisely ‘52 Iranian cultural sites’ into his head? I mean, who in their right might would believe even for a moment that Trump had any idea of there being 52 sites in Iran to bomb or blow up?” This is a fascinating question; one which leads one to wonder who is pulling on Trump’s leash?
(n.b. The targeting of cultural properties by the U.S. is indeed not allowed. The U.S. is a signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention, which requires "refraining from any act of hostility" directed against cultural property.)
‘45 has also flatly stated that American forces will be withdrawn from Iraq . . . and that thousands more will be sent to the Middle East. How much prior conversation he has had with America’s allies before taking these steps is unknown; lone wolves do have a tendency to keep things close to the vest. Whether or not ‘45 has considered what these steps will do to the shape and future history of the region is debatable. Already, there are signs that oil prices are beginning to undergo a sharp rise . . . something a president really doesn’t want to have happen in an election year.
Some of ‘45’s BFFs - like Fox News commentators Tucker Carlson and Geraldo Rivera have questioned the president’s rationale and wisdom for the Soleimani drone strike, seeing it as a prelude to a wider conflict. As a result of Carlson and Rivera opening their mouths, many of the president’s most steadfast supporters are questioning whether or not Fox has joined the ranks of the “lamestream media,” and shifting their allegiance to the highly conservative “One America News Network.” Even Israeli P.M. Bibi Netanyahu - whose own political future is in the cross-hairs - has ordered his Cabinet ministers not to speak to the press about the Soleimani assassination in order to prevent public statements that might create the impression Israel was involved in the operation. Obviously Netanyahu - who despite his many personal shortcomings is a crafty political operator - understands that Trump’s latest escapade is not in Israel’s best interests.
At this point in time, it is impossible to know for certain whether or not Soleimani’s assassination is a “wag the dog” or deus ex machina response to the many political travails of Donald J. Trump. Nor is it knowable if this event will further imperil his race for reelection. Only those with fully functioning crystal balls can know the answer. And while ‘45’s most ardent fan (as well as those who, in general, believe him to be a mindless buffoon, will applaud his having taken out a truly evil man, there remains the question of what effect, in the long run, it will have on the United States, Israel, the Middle East and the 2020 election.
Perhaps only Barry Levinson and David Mamet (the screenwriter) know the answer . . .
273 days until the general election.
Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone