VP Mike Pence is a colorless "born-again" Christian Zionist with degree in Law and a man who in real meritocracy would not be entrusted with mowing a lawn or tending beets or potatoes. But we live in the world where alternative reality is being sold wholesale and it does sell, at least on some of the occasions. The fact that Mike Pence is an idiot be damned. Yet, he sells this alt-reality non stop. His latest? Even Goebbelsonian NYT cannot take it:
First, can we finally settle on the obvious fact that US top political echelon in the last 30 or so years simply does not operate in facts. I am not talking about knowledge of the outside world of which there is pretty little precious in there. But even mentally challenged people CAN and often do recognize simple facts. You know, boiling water is hot, if you slam your hand with a hammer it will hurt like hell, do not cross the street in a front of the oncoming traffic and Iran has nothing to do with 911 and, in fact, immediately offered help to the United States in investigation. But never mind, for Mr. Pence, whose qualifications, with the exception of sucking up and being loyal to Israel, are that of the low level bureaucrat who has zero experiences with actual warfare, intelligence and statecraft, facts do not matter and he goes to interpret reality the way he wants. Even NYT is forced to state:
How Pence arrived at this number and this account is unclear. Why Soleimani, leader of a hard-line Shiite Muslim military apparatus, would have come to the aid of members of al-Qaida, a Sunni extremist group with strong ties to Saudi Arabia, is also unclear.
The problem with this statement is in the fact that this is not the only thing which is unclear--pretty much, at this stage, it is unclear if there are any sane people left in D.C. who actually are professionals and can calculate their steps beyond the first one. The consequences of Soleimani's assassination are already felt--but that is just a warm up from some random Shiite groups. Iran is going to take her time contemplating how to hit back, and she will. I will abstain now from going too deep in that issue, Bernhard of Moon of Alabama, as well as Andrei Raevsky and Scott Ritter already made their contributions, so I am not going to ponder this issue. Also of note is an excellent epitaph of sorts from Colonel Lang. I will, however, say this: this bunch of nutjobs in D.C. have no idea what they just unleashed and I don't believe anymore for a second that Trump does this for the sake of some sophisticated multi-dimensional plan of extracting the US from the Middle East. I don't buy this for a second. There is no plan which benefits the United States. Israel? Sure, but not the US, especially since any real war with Iran will shake the United States to its foundation which will make Vietnam look like a vacation. If they do not understand this in the White House and reside in the alternative reality, which second in command in the United States just demonstrated--we may have bigger problem than already a major shift in geopolitical balance since yesterday.
