Not from Trump, the man is nothing if not a serial exaggerator, he is totally capable of bombing some infrastructure and then declaring that the whole Iranian civilization has stopped existing.
In the same way that he is boasting of having already won the war, or already having effected regime change with the war still going and the regime very much not changed.
He’s also a malignant narcissist with a huge nuclear arsenal who can, in fact do exactly what he said with a single command. And who would have zero moral scruples about doing so.
And so far “he’d never do such a thing” has a very poor track record.
no no, I’m not saying “he’d never do such a thing” , I’m saying “he usually overpromises and underdelivers”
There is a guard rail that I don’t think that you are considering.
For all the talk about how Trump only cares about himself, he actually cares a great deal about what other people think about him. He craves attention, wants adulation, and regularly seeks out the advice of others.
If he can he convinced that he’d be thought of as a monster if he dropped a nuke, then I think he’d reconsider.
I also recognize the enormity of that If
TACO applies.
If we’re lucky.
That’s a good one!
My take is that Trump would choose the relatively less risky carpet bombing (or, in reality, precision bombing of civilian structures) before he drops nukes. That’s still a massive war crime and would make the US into a worldwide villain, more so than historically.
Links:
Me: If you shoot at the king, make sure you don’t miss. Any 25th amendment option would require careful preparation within all 3 branches of government.
Jonathan Bernstein:
Regardless. The two points here are that Republicans are actually free to choose to fight against policies they believe are terrible for the nation and for the party, and that there’s plenty they can do even if they’re not willing to impeach and remove the president. And if they don’t do it, then it’s on them, not anyone else.
See Moriaty’s post: Trump is susceptible to peer pressure.
The real problem with the 25th Amendment in a situation like this is that it’s really designed for a President who is comatose or similarly incapable of speaking for himself, or is in such bad shape that he isn’t going to make the attempt.
Because if the President is ready and able to sign a declaration saying no, he’s ready to resume his duties (which very definitely is the situation we’d be in), the bar for the 25th Amendment is substantially higher for the bar for impeachment and removal. So you might as well ‘just’ impeach and remove.
Impeachment and removal: majority vote in the House, 2/3 vote in the Senate.
25th Amendment: VP + majority of Cabinet + 2/3 vote in the House + 2/3 vote in the Senate.
ETA: People need to read the Amendment (just Section 4, really) when they feel the urge to propose its use. Ten minutes, max.
And if Trump does declare himself the fittest, most bestest president ever in history, and gets back in, then ANYone in cabinet who voted for his ouster will find themselves very much in the crosshairs of whatever nutjob is in charge of the DOJ.
or worse. As MeasureforMeasure said.
The problem is: when nukes might be involved, ‘usually’ is nowhere near good enough.
Oh I fully agree with that.
Exactly. It’s good for basically two things: Clarifying that the VP isn’t “acting President” but effectively President when the President is incapacitated (basically codification of the Tyler principal) for whatever reason (including things like scheduled medical procedures) and dealing with a potential problem like Wilson. Sure, it sets further succession past that but how likely is that to ever actually come up and matter.
Frankly, if the President needs to be permanently removed it can be done faster and easier by Congress.
TACO has been implemented.
A “truce” is on.
The nuclear threat has receded for the next 2 weeks, but I wanted to note that Tom Nichols extended his tweet at the Atlantic Magazine today:
It’s more opinion than analysis. More should than will; it’s normative, not predictive.
If Trump did give an order to attack civilian targets that have no military value as a means of collectively punishing the Iranian people, he would be ordering war crimes. If he directs the widespread and irrevocable destruction of Iranian civilization—that is, if he commands a genocide and especially if he approves the release of nuclear weapons—the U.S. military should refuse such blatantly illegal orders.
If Trump gives that order, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should lay his stars down in front of Trump. Then, each general who gets the order should do likewise, and each man—and it will be men, in Hegseth’s Pentagon—promoted as a replacement should do likewise, until Trump has a pile of stars and eagles on his desk. Trump may eventually find someone to fulfill his orders, but people of honor and duty need not be the unwilling instruments of so great a sin.
Trump’s nuclear threats fall under the category of continuing conduct of the war.
Continuing the discussion from Who in America is actually happy about the Trump/politics situation today?, there is a response to someone alleging that, " Most of us were afraid Trump was going to set off Armageddon."
Basically agree that most were not - though smart experts were worried about this, if “This” refers to nuclear war. See my previous posts about nuclear expert Tom Nichols. Substitute in the word genocide for Armageddon and add strategic expert Phillips P O’Brien to the list.
I’m not saying that nukes were probable on Monday: I am claiming that this wasn’t a lizardman concern, but rather something that received condemnation from a wide variety of informed commentators.
Technicality: nobody informed was worried about an imminent nuclear exchange - though one European diplomat commented that he preferred TACOs to WWIII.
Iran has no nuclear weapons, so there would have been no exchange. Just a genocidal massacre.
A bit of googling gets an article about the Italian Defense Minister speaking on the subject, whom I presume counts as “informed”. The other articles I find are either paywalled, won’t allow adblock users, or just talk about the high general likelihood of Trump using nuclear weapons instead of giving a specific time for it.
Lots of informed people were. I can honestly understand why DrDeth would say that, but we’re here to fight ignorance so here we are.
Greg Sargent is a national security commentator for the New Republic. Veering back into highly topical territory he opined why Trump, “…eagerly vowed to obliterate a nation of 93 million”
the core story that Trump and Hegseth have told about this war is that it’s showcasing that American strength and power are supreme, unquestioned, and can accomplish literally anything. That includes the mere threat to unleash that power: Because the specter of American military violence and terror can make literally anyone do anything that Trump wills, maximal threats of annihilation are inherently good. Hegseth constantly preens about America’s superlative killing power with unnerving relish and bloodlust in order to tell that story.
But it’s taken a big hit. Yes, the war showcased awesome technological prowess. But that cannot accomplish literally anything Trump wants it to. Nor can threatening to rain it down on millions of innocent people with unconstrained brutality and savagery. Trump and Hegseth set out to prove otherwise, and at this too they failed miserably.
All foreign policy is domestic politics. Trump and Hegseth believe that shows of what they consider strength plays well with their base. It’s the fantasy of using force to get what you what, whatever you want, whenever you want, without considering consequences. That fantasy has taken a hit.
trump made a lot of threats, but he never made a nuclear threat.
So far as 'world leaders" goes, we have a minister of a third rate non-nuclear nation. That’s it.
The White house specifically denied trump made any such threat. Mind you, they and trump lie constantly, of course, but the threat was to destroy Iran, which the USA can do with conventional weapons.
Look, trump is certainly capable of making such a threat, and then lying about it. But he didnt make that threat. Lots of others, some of which are even possible.
I mean the USA military is showing that with just conventional weapons they can pretty much walk over Iran all day every day.
Iran just strikes back at all sorts of targets- and yeah, Iran can make passage thru the Straight a very risky proposition- attacking unarmed civilian ships. That is their pretty much only bargaining tool- and it can hurt the US a little economically- which trump should have known beforehand. But nooooo…
He threatened to obliterate their civilization. That’s a nuclear threat.