The admin might have been readier had it not chopped back the State Dept’s #MiddleEast desk, gotten rid of its #oil & #gas experts & eliminated its dedicated #Iran office. The admin handicapped its own #NationalSecurity Council by firing staff members, some at the behest of a #conspiracy-minded internet personality, & undercutting its #independence — not a good idea before launching a #war. Trump’s social media posts seemed self-contradictory & demented.

#Trump #USpol #PsychoticState

Even as the bombs fell, the administration, concerned about #gasoline prices, waived #sanctions on some Iranian #oil, “giving #Iran’s war effort against the #US a boost,” as The Washington Post reported. Area experts were shocked when the administration proved unprepared for Iran’s partial closing of the #StraitOfHormuz, a tactic experts had anticipated for decades.

#Trump #USpol #PsychoticState

#Trump called for an international coalition to open the #StraitOfHormuz, then said the United States could go it alone, & then said the waterway would somehow “open itself.” He claimed that the United States had already won the #war, that the war would end soon, & that the war would end “when I feel it … in my bones.” As a headline in The Times put it, Trump’s position on #Iran “can change by the sentence.”

#USpol #PsychoticState

The goal was #RegimeChange — until it wasn’t. The demand was unconditional surrender — until it wasn’t. Deadlines were issued & then erased. Threats of total destruction were made & then pulled back. #Iran’s #nuclear program was a casus belli in February despite that fact that we were told by #Trump that it had been “obliterated” last June.

#USpol #PsychoticState

It is the #IranWar that has most vividly demonstrated the scope of the problem. In this conflict, the most potent antagonist has been the admin’s own incoherence.

The #Trump administration chose to wage a #war without deciding on its aims, mapping out a strategy, planning for contingencies or even being able to explain itself.

#USpol #PsychoticState

In that respect, Trump’s 2nd term is different from his first. In 2020, he could confabulate about the election result or babble about treating Covid with injections of disinfectant. But he could not translate his fantasies into reality—at least not usually [exception∶ #Jan6]. In the 2nd term, by contrast, institutional psychosis has been on display since Day 1.

#Trump #USpol #PsychoticState

This does not mean that every individual in the government is emotionally or psychologically unstable. Nor is it a clinical diagnosis of #Trump himself [though, if it walks like a duck & talks like a duck…]. The issue is that the admin as a whole lacks a consistent attachment to #reality & the ability to organize its thinking coherently. Trump’s grandiosity, his impulsivity, inconsistency & his outright breaks with reality have become state #policy.

#PsychoticState