Who is Trump listening to on Iran?
The danger here is that Trump will ignore the American Iraq and Iran expertise, hawkish and dovish alike, that's been developed over the past three decades because he "knows more than the generals" and listens to America's adversaries instead. This is a complicated situation and he is not up to the task.
From what I understand, this strike in Iraq was strange and no one really understands why it wasn't aimed at Syria. Since it was for the killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack, it sounds like a Trump decision to me. Eddie Gallagher probably talked him into it at the party.
While he may give Republicans heartburn on many of his foreign policy and national security "ideas", Trump and his advisers have always agreed on one thing: Iran. They all agreed that the Iran deal was terrible and that it was important to maintain Iran as an enemy, for reasons that never made sense to me.
Trump has demagogued the country throughout his presidency (even as he hugged Kim Jong Un as his best friend.) Obviously, much of this has to do with Trump's relationship with Saudi Arabia and the hawks will never get over 1979 but it has looked like Trump was heading for some kind of confrontation from the beginning.
2020 may be the year. Lindsey Graham is out there this morning saying that Trump has "put the world on notice that there will be no Benghazis on his watch." He seemed excited.
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