For those of us alive on Sept. 11, 2001 — fully one-third of people in the United States today were not, and millions more were too young for memories — it’s hard to believe that it has been 25 years since that horrific day. And yet it isn’t difficult at all, given the transformational changes dating from that time that remain a fact of everyday life, not least the airport security lines and the ever-advancing technology in use there.
Those and the constant of Americans at war in the Middle East.
For all the sadness Sept. 11 annually evokes, there’s a new source on this 25th anniversary in that the United States again — still — is mired in a Mideast war of choice costing American blood, treasure, weaponry and standing in the world. Just when we Americans thought we were out, “they” pulled us back in, to paraphrase Michael Corleone — “they” being President Trump, the very person who repeatedly ran for election lambasting predecessor George W. Bush and vowing he’d end forever wars.
Yet Trump’s ill-conceived war, which he sprung in February without consulting Congress or allies, is the poison flower of Bush’s calamity: Now the target is the terroristic theocracy of Iran, the very Mideast power that the United States inadvertently but predictably elevated and emboldened by its post-9/11 war in Iraq, Iran’s longtime rival and a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. The Army’s own official history of the needless U.S.-Iraq war concluded “the only victor was Iran.”
And there we are.
For all his condemnations of Bush for starting the Iraq war on a lie, about Iraq’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, so did Trump initiate his: on the lie that Iran would imminently have a nuclear weapon (this despite his claim just seven months earlier that a U.S. strike had “obliterated” Iran’s nuke program).
Also like Bush, Trump wages war ahead of midterm elections with control of Congress at stake and makes false claims of success to win voters. The trouble is, Trump does so against Americans’ memories of Bush’s record and premature boasts of “Mission Accomplished.” Voters know how this story ends.
Meanwhile, as the country keeps itself bogged down in deserts, the greater threats to national security in the view of U.S. intelligence analysts for decades — China and Russia — pursue their expansionist aims all but unchecked by the leader of the world’s distracted superpower, who’s also busy building monuments in Washington.
China, especially, advances at U.S. expense, building up its military as America depletes its own and working to dominate economic markets as Trump forfeits some (clean energy technology) and dithers in others (artificial intelligence). Russia ratchets up its deadly attacks on Ukraine and, increasingly, conducts sabotage against U.S. allies in Europe that back Ukraine, risking the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s entry into the conflict. And Vladimir Putin does so without U.S. pushback. Trump insists on a sickening false equivalence between Russia the invader and Ukraine the invaded.
Russia and China aren’t merely relishing the United States’ Mideast misadventures; they are helping Iran with intelligence and materiel. China, by buying up to 90% of Iran’s oil, is making a mockery of Trump’s recent declaration of an “economic D-day” to force Tehran to capitulate by coercive sanctions, given that bombs have failed.
So what is the Trump administration doing in response? Last month it pulled the only U.S. aircraft carrier deployed in the western Pacific, a symbol of supposed resolve against China, to send it to the Mideast. Last week, to Europeans’ disgust, Trump’s administration invited Russia to a summit of G20 allies’ finance ministers, held in North Carolina, for the first time since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Days later, Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner fawned over Putin, for the cameras, at yet another meeting in Moscow. And later this month, Trump will literally roll out the red carpet for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the White House.
It’s bad enough he’s dragged us into another war, and thereby weakened the U.S. position versus China and Russia. What’s at least as threatening is that Trump has so wantonly violated the early lessons of 9/11: greater unity within, and vigilance without.
For all the years of wasteful warring abroad, at least the United States hasn’t suffered a similar attack on its territory and people. The costly steps taken since 9/11 have thwarted many.
The nation’s rally-round unity was short-lived under Bush, but Trump never sought American solidarity, only division, in his whole political life. We knew that about him. What Americans couldn’t have foreseen is the extent to which he’s let the nation’s post-9/11 guard down.
Trump vowed as a candidate not only to make America great again, but to “Make America safe again!” Yet mere days into his second term, Trump toadies began executing his orders to fire, push out, demote or reassign hundreds, ultimately thousands, of agents, investigators and lawyers with decades of experience in counterterrorism, all on suspicion of disloyalty to Trump. FBI agents who monitored terrorist suspects have been reassigned to help deport migrants and investigate Trump’s political enemies. The Homeland Security Department, created as a response to 9/11, refocused from domestic terrorism, espionage and cyber threats to mass deportations.
Trump’s war against Iran, and his killing of its supreme leader, has only raised the risks of retaliation within the United States, counterterrorism experts warn. Yet a week before the war, clownish FBI Director Kash Patel was guzzling beer in Milan, Italy, with U.S. Olympians. Days after it began, Trump fired his Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem.
With that kind of advance work, is it any wonder that Trump failed to anticipate that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, throttling global commerce and prompting a stalemate?
With Noem out, new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin is on the case — of probing voting machines. At the agency established to monitor threats like those missed before 9/11.
What an insult to the victims. It’s left to the rest of us to honor them.
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