244
‘Worst foreign policy blunder in decades’: Republicans turn on Trump over Iran deal
(www.the-independent.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2026
244 points (98.4% liked)
politics
30109 readers
2675 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I mean, half the joke is that they didn't vote for it. Trump has been outspokenly in opposition to wars abroad, in direct refutation to members of his own party (during the primary) and the opposition (during the general). American national politics is a sucking void of anti-war candidates, such that even a serial liar and shameless two-faced shit can fill it.
Incidentally, taking an anti-war tact is how Obama beat Hillary in 2008. And how he obliterated McCain several months later. And "Double Gitmo" Mitt Romney four years after that. It's also how Clinton beat Bush Sr in '92 (people hating Operation Desert Storm). And it was a long-forgotten part of the Bush Jr campaign against Gore (criticizing US involvement in East Africa and the Baltic States). Hell, Kennedy and LBJ both campaigned as anti-war candidates. They beat Nixon by promising to de-escalate the Cold War (and avoid any future Korean Wars). And then Nixon ran the same playbook eight years later. Reagan beat Carter on similar grounds (peaceful extraction from Iran).
Candidates regularly run - and win - on anti-war positions, only to enter office and reverse course, generating a backlash as a result. Trump's just the latest and most glaring example.
Point of order: all of your contrasting examples were competent.
Plenty of people will happily argue that Operation Desert Storm was a shitshow. Just ask all the veterans with "Gulf War Syndrome". Or the millions of starving Iraqis that incentivized the "Oil for Food" program (itself an enormous swindle). Similarly, if you crack open Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States", he's got some hard truths to drop about the US intervention in Kosovo and Serbia. For that matter, it's worth interrogating why Yugoslavia disintegrated so quickly to begin with (TL;DR; perestroika).
And then you've got Korea, which I would argue is the gold standard for "Failed US Wars" even relative to the current Iran cockup. MacArthur runs laps around Pete Hegseth when it comes to disastrous military adventurism.
Even the Bush Afghan/Iraq Wars are bigger blunders by sheer volume. Hard to compete with a 23 year long calamity inside a mere four months. We did not - blessedly - turn Iran into a narco-state that sent thousands of tons of cheap heroin into the veins of western allied nations for decades on end. We do not appear to have created a new ISIS by engaging in de-IRGC-ization. We killed tens of thousands of people rather than millions of people.
Coulda been way worse.
Nobody is worse at military operations than Pete Hegseth, nobody.
As for the rest, too tired to argue.
I would be hard pressed to name a military command more disastrous than MacArthur's decision to invade China.
While I agree with you in theory, since it indeed was utterly disastrous, he at least has some sort of coherent (using that phrase mildly here).
Hegseth seems to just like to kill people with impunity, remotely.
Do you really think he could put together a real campaign against a country ready and willing to fight?