First Draft: President Lindsey Graham?
Prem on how the hawkish Republican senator got the Iran invasion he’s been pining for and now wants to attack Cuba too, while Donald Trump is still not worried about exploding gas prices.
On this day in 1933, the 73rd US Congress was called into a special session by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, beginning its “100 days” during which it passed 77 bills into law. Compare and contrast with the current GOP-led 119th Congress, which is on course to be the least productive and most useless in our nation’s history.
Good morning! Prem here, wishing you all a wonderful new week. Since we last spoke, Zeteo has weathered several attacks, including from Donald Trump’s pro-Israel White House and one prominent pro-Israel Democratic senator, as we continue to push for truth and accountability on the illegal Israel-led war on Iran… another reminder that your support for our work is needed more now than ever!
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has gone from Trump foe to practically directing the president’s warmongering foreign policy; oil prices are going through the roof, but Trump doesn’t seem to care; and Democrats are calling on the Pentagon to investigate the horrific attack on an Iranian elementary school.
Baying for Blood
“He’s one of the dumbest human beings I’ve ever seen… you’ll end up starting World War III with a guy like that.”
That’s what Donald Trump had to say about Lindsey Graham during his first bid for president in 2016. Turns out Trump was right, as Graham has helped dog-walk him into his disastrous war in Iran – a baseless and illegal conflict that’s pierced the illusion that the president is a dovish exception to the bloodthirsty conservative movement.
Graham has made himself the very loud and very public face of the war effort – look no further than his tour of the Sunday show circuit yesterday, in which the arch-neoconservative could readily be mistaken for any number of Israeli cabinet officials who’ve been inciting genocide in Gaza for the past two-and-a-half-years.
The South Carolina senator shuffled between all the pro-war talking points: a desire for regime change; the need to stop Iran from a fictitious nuclear weapon; oil, oil, oil. And, all the while, he demanded that the US’s allies in the region – currently facing attacks as a result of a war sparked by the US itself – “get in the fight.”
On the joint war led by Israel and the US, Graham crowed that we should “just wait and see” what comes in the next two weeks. “We’re going to blow the hell out of these people,” he pledged, baying for blood in what was a not-so-veiled encouragement of war crimes. “When this regime goes down, we’re going to have a new Mideast,” he imagined, adding in a moment of raw imperial honesty: “We’re going to make a ton of money.” He noted that “Venezuela and Iran have 31% of the world’s oil reserves.”
Graham’s appetite for intervention did not end there. Brandishing a hat that read “Free Cuba” (adding to his collection of euphemistic hats of places he wants to invade), Graham promised: “Stay tuned. The liberation of Cuba is upon us. We’re marching through the world. We’re clearing out the bad guys. Cuba is next.”
He appeared on the Sunday shows after Israel bombed several oil facilities, igniting a massive firestorm in Tehran. As the flames engulfing the Iranian capital were being put out by toxic rains, Graham rejoiced: “Donald J. Trump saved the world from real chaos… Thank God Trump did this.”
Graham’s PR role for Trump’s war is all the more interesting given his apparent role in making the war happen. The efforts have been as pathetically paternalistic as Graham reportedly playing a word-association game with our man-child president, encouraging him to go to war.