Murkowski gives benefit of the doubt to Trump's new war

The muddled statement below from Sen. Lisa Murkowski treats President Donald Trump as a careful and thoughtful human being who weighed all the alternatives before going to war with Iran and surely knows what he’s doing.

Instead of succumbing to this Republican groupthink, Murkowski needs to admit that Trump started a war without consulting Congress or sticking to any one story about what he hopes to accomplish. Her comments are alarmingly similar to the brilliant claim by Pete Hegseth that the U.S. is not at war with Iran, only with its attempt to get nuclear weapons.

While Murkowski’s innate caution is far superior to the reflexive Trump cheerleading that is the hallmark of Sen. Dan Sullivan, anyone reading her words might get the idea that a rational decision-making process took place before Trump pulled the trigger. And that he has some idea of what happens next.

Murkowski should read the New York Times account about Trump’s decision to go to war.

Had she reflected on its portrayal of a man worried about all the wrong things, she would never have issued a statement like the one below, pretending that a serious examination preceded Trump’s invasion.

The Times said that Trump began retreating from his earlier statements urging caution by Israel on June 13, shortly after Israel attacked Iran.

“He marveled to advisers about what he said was a brilliant Israeli military operation, which involved a series of precision strikes that killed key figures in Iran’s military leadership and blasted away strategic weapons sites. Mr. Trump took calls on his cellphone from reporters and began hailing the operation as ‘excellent’ and ‘very successful’ and hinting that he had much more to do with it than people realized,” the Times said.

“Later that day, Mr. Trump asked an ally how the Israeli strikes were ‘playing.’ He said that ‘everyone’ was telling him he needed to get more involved, including potentially dropping 30,000-pound GBU-57 bombs on Fordo, the Iranian uranium-enrichment facility buried underneath a mountain south of Tehran.”

“The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved. Several Trump advisers lamented the fact that Mr. Carlson was no longer on Fox, which meant that Mr. Trump was not hearing much of the other side of the debate.”

Instead of being “encouraged by the administration’s assurance” about the limits of the attack, waiting to hear a “legal justification” when there is none, Murkowski needs to be candid with people that this very well could “spiral into a protracted fight” because of Trump’s lack of judgment.

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’” Trump wrote to his fans, “but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???”

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