This excerpt — from “Trump Decertifying Iran Nuclear Deal more MALO than MAGA,” October 13, 2017 — explains a lot, not just about his nuclear politics but his imploding presidency.
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Hardly a day goes by without Donald Trump doing or saying something to make his presidency a laughingstock. … Frankly, only a diagnosis that places Trump somewhere on the autism spectrum explains why. …
You’d think Trump’s nuclear brinkmanship with North Korea were dangerous enough. Yet he seems hell-bent on doing the same with Iran.
Never mind autism, I suspect Trump is doing this because he’s a sociopath who is unable to
- exercise sound judgment
- control his tweeting impulses and norm-busting antics
- appreciate the danger inherent in his ill-advised tweets and antics
- appreciate the consequences of those ill-advised tweets and antics. …
Whatever Trump’s ambition to Make America Great Again (MAGA), it is no match for his pathological intent to Make America Loathe Obama (MALO). Only this explains his Mad-Hatter efforts to repeal and replace (or failing that to undermine) Obamacare, President Obama’s signature domestic achievement.
In any case, it’s impossible to overstate the danger inherent in Trump decertifying this Iran nuclear deal, Obama’s signature foreign-policy achievement. But it speaks volumes that the other signatories, Republican congressional leaders, and members of his own national security team are all warning him against doing so. This, in a nutshell, betrays the extent to which Trump will go to MALO.
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There’s also this from “Trump’s Leading March against Iran, but Nobody’s Following,” October 16, 2017:
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Iran, Russia and European leaders roundly condemned President Trump’s decision on Friday to disavow the Iran nuclear deal, saying that it reflected the growing isolation of the United States, threatened to destabilize the Middle East and could make it harder to resolve the growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
(The New York Times, October 13, 2017)
Donald Trump is utterly unfit to serve as president of the United States. His nuclear war of words with Kim Jong-un of North Korea and his willful decertification of the nuclear deal with Iran are just the latest in a litany of examples that prove this beyond any reasonable doubt.
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I fear Trump is just too stupid to appreciate the manifest absurdity of trying to strike a nuclear deal with North Korea on the one hand, while threatening to rip up a similar deal with Iran on the other.
To be fair, though, the manifest irony of his Art of the Deal is that no deal is worth the paper it’s written on. Trump actually takes pride in the litigious scars he bears from failing to honor hundreds of business deals. And he’s taking similar pride in his unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and the Paris Climate Accord.
In fact, the only deals Trump seems to think are inviolate are the non-disclosure agreements he struck over the years with playboy bunnies (like Karen McDougal) and porn stars (like Stormy Daniels).
This is why Kim is bound to regard any nuclear deal Trump strikes with him as tantamount to Trump selling him the Brooklyn Bridge. And Kim will behave accordingly.
Specifically, he will extract every possible concession (e.g., sanctions relief for food, oil, and foreign direct investments). But then he will show even less regard for Trump’s nuclear deal with his North Korea than Trump is showing for Obama’s with the Ayatollah’s Iran. And, in doing so, Kim will make Trump’s Art of the Deal look like chicken scratch.
Related commentaries:
Decertifying…
Trump’s leading…
Trump and Kim to meet…
stormy…