The beginning of Trump’s unravelling may be at hand

By Martin Love

You have to wonder about the Saudis who, aside from the Zionists, are considered the number one U.S. ally in the Middle East. And the latest incarnation of Saudi Arabia’s “leadership” is Muhammad bin Salman, the designated crown prince of the Kingdom, who for stupidity may know no equal at the moment.

There are many ways to assassinate anyone. Heaven knows long beleaguered Iranians know about this, who have seen a few of its nuclear energy scientists, for example, murdered in recent years, most likely by the Zionists or their paid shills. But to directly lure journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi into a Saudi consulate in Istanbul from whence he apparently never left, except perhaps literally in pieces, has to be about the dumbest move “MBS” may have ordered to date. And we know a number of Saudi henchmen were in all likelihood dispatched from Riyadh on a Gulfstream jet to do the dirty deed. Maybe the world will never know for sure what happened to Khashoggi, that he or dismembered parts of him may never turn up, but connecting the dots could hardly be much easier to reach a plausible explanation.

Khashoggi, in any event, is widely admired as an Arab journalist, and a fearless one, who was a writer committed to finding and reporting the truth, regardless of any threat to himself in doing so. But what’s most interesting now is that one might be able to conjecture the beginning of some serious changes in Western attitudes towards leading Middle East countries, namely Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Saudis have in recent years been the Mideast darlings of the Western establishment and the Trump gang. To the extent Saudi Arabia falls from favor, Iran may benefit – not that Iran literally NEEDS favor with the U.S. except to the extent that the U.S. stop meddling in Iranian affairs and trying to wreck its economy.

Trump is currently under pressure by many in the U.S. Congress to completely condemn Khashoggi’s disappearance and probable murder by MBS, and even to stop selling arms to the Saudis and to disavow support for the Saudi and U.A.E. war on Yemen.

Trump’s first reaction to the story coming out of Istanbul was to downplay Khashoggi and point to the lucrative arms sales to the Saudis. (You can’t get more venal than that, but it’s entirely within character for Trump`, who loves nothing so much as money.) And even his ignorant son, Donald Jr., who likes shooting African wildlife on “safari”, has gotten into the act. He’s been trying to say Khashoggi supported Islamic terrorism, pointing to a 1988 photo of Khashoggi holding a RPG with some al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. Do you think young Donald realizes that in 1988 the U.S. was in full support of the mujahideen in Afghanistan and at the time al-Qaeda was not deemed a “terrorist” group but rather a group of freedom fighters trying to liberate Afghanistan from the grip of the Soviet Union? One conservative website in the U.S. has even gone so far as to claim that Khashoggi’s defenders and supporters are being duped by Iranian “interests” looking to damage relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. This, of course, implies that damage to relations with the Saudis does benefit Iran.

In any case, as sad as Khashoggi’s disappearance and probable murder is, for he is or was a respected and brave journalist, there are other factors at work that may also mark the beginning of the unraveling of Trump’s credibility and his Presidency, as at least with the upcoming midterm elections in early November, a shift to a Democratic Party majority at least in the U.S. House of Representatives. Consider:

The forced installation of Brett Kavanaugh by the GOP and Trump onto the U.S. Supreme Court, according to many leading law experts in the U.S., has virtually destroyed what used to be the most venerable and respected court anywhere, because now it is an unreliable, partisan court.

This month the U.S. markets for both bonds and stocks came tumbling down some. Not much, but enough to scare investors who for almost a decade have seen nothing but rising stock and bond values. Trump of late has been crowing that his economic policies gave rise to the rising market values. But he got a lot of egg on his face this past week, and tried to deflect blame onto the Federal Reserve Bank for raising interest rates And before he was elected and campaigning in 2016, Trump was claiming the U.S. markets were in a “bubble”!

There are, in fact, a number of other issues coming to the fore suggesting that Trump’s glory days may end sooner or later, and that with a current “approval” rating of only about 38 percent of Americans, that number could fall dramatically in the months ahead.

As an observer, I have written time and again of the necessity for patience and forbearance, not merely by Americans disgusted with Trump, but by Iranians disgusted with the U.S., too. No question Iran looks more and more like the state Saudi Arabia may wish it could be, and don’t forget Trump himself dissed the Saudis this month saying that they would not last more than two weeks without U.S. support. The Islamic Republic of Iran has lasted for decades with nothing but venom and cruelty from the U.S. That is saying quite much. 

Martin Love