This is a very interesting hypothetical. What your readers may not know, Thomas, is that Philip Gordon is a key foreign policy advisor to both Biden and Harris and that he is a lock to be the National Security Advisor in a Harris Administration. He has worked closely with Ariane Tabatabai and in 2020 he coauthored a New York Times op-ed with her. In their first sentence, they lamented President Trump’s decision to order the killing of Qassim Suleimani. They said,
“The costs of the United States’ targeted killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, are mounting beyond the already significant risks of Iranian retaliation and subsequent military confrontation.”
Without detailing all the points that Gordon and Tabatabai made, their take home message was this,
“Instead of continuing on its current path, the Trump administration needs to urgently de-escalate tensions with Iran. Some American allies, such as President Emmanuel Macron of France, have offered to help, but so far the administration has declined their services. Mr. Pompeo has expressed disappointment with Europe’s unwillingness to back the American attack on General Suleimani.
A genuine policy of de-escalation would require facing the reality that the maximum pressure campaign has failed. That campaign was designed to curb Iranian violent behavior in the region and stop its nuclear program. The tragic irony is that it now seems set to do the opposite.
If the Trump administration does not move to reduce tensions, it will soon find itself facing the very dilemma the nuclear deal was designed to avoid: the choice between a nuclear Iran or the need to start a war to prevent one.”
I doubt either of them are the leaker; Gordon is too high profile and given her past sympathies, Tabatabai is too obvious a candidate to get away with it. What’s clear is that in a Harris Administration both of them will be even more powerful figures than they are now. They will both end up in senior positions that won't require Senate confirmation.
Their tenure would prove disastrous, especially for Israel. They are both partial to Iran and fully buy into the concept of empowering Iran to serve as a counterweight to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs.
Your hypothetical made me think about what might happen in an alternate universe where it wasn’t hypothetical but true. I think that instead of the alt-right MAGA crowd opposing Trump’s Ukraine policy, he would have convinced that crowd to go along with him. That would have united MAGA Republicans, traditional Republicans and many Democrats in favor of supporting Ukraine. Only the Squad and their fellow travelers would have been in opposition. They would reflexively have opposed anything Trump was for.
Your hypothetical may end up closer to reality than you might think. Ukraine is slowly but surely being defeated by Russia. Ten million Ukranians have left the country and its fertility rate has fallen to 1.0, almost the lowest rate in the world. Russia is suffering too, but much less than Ukraine. Although Russia has a very low fertility rate, its rate is somewhere between 50 percent and 75 percent higher than Ukraine’s. Then there's the death rate which is very high in both nations because of the war but Russia has a much higher population to begin with.
To put this in perspective, with a fertility rate of 1, if the death rate remains constant, Ukraine’s population will decline by 50 percent in 25 years. Sadly, its worse than that because Ukraine’s death rate isn't stable, its rising. Then there’s the fact that if the war doesn't end soon many of those Ukrainian expatriates will settle in their temporary homes permanently and never return.
This article may be interesting to you and your readers. See,
The only hope for Ukraine is for the war to end soon. If it doesn't, Ukraine wont survive and will end up totally dominated by Russia. A Harris Administration will offer more of the same. Under a Harris Administration, Ukraine will bleed to death. If there's any evidence that Harris has a better plan for Ukraine than Biden, I haven't heard it.
As you outlined in your hypothetical, Trump doesn't like losing. That's actually not hypothetical; its obviously true. Trump will get the best deal for Ukraine that's possible under the circumstances. If Harris wins, sadly, Ukraine will go down for the count.
There's one more thing I think is worth adding. Almost exactly one year after their op-ed was published, Biden was inaugurated. Shortly thereafter, Gordon joined the Administration and Tabatabai was hired at the suggestion of Robert Malley (who has since been exiled) to work on Iran policy.
The Biden Administration adopted the recommendations of Gordon and Tabatabai with all the enthusiasm of a young chef following a recipe in a cook book. The Administration did everything they recommended and then some.
None of it worked; Iran metaphorically spat in Biden’s face. Gordon and Tabatabai proved to be spectacularly wrong. Iran couldn't be appeased; it continued to pursue its policy of arming itself and its proxies to the teeth. Biden provided Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief; it accomplished nothing.
What new disasters will Gordon cook up if Harris is elected?
Thanks for making the effort to broaden awareness. I've been calling out the Islamist-loving traitors in the Brandon-Cackles Maladministration for over a year now.
The Biden/Harris administration is like most progressives who wear the rose-tinted glasses: if we're just really, really nice to the Iranians they'll play nice with us.
Wrong. Like the progressive secularists they are, the Biden/Harris crowd don't accept the fact that there is such a thing as true evil, and that the Islamist regime is precisely that. As Substacker Ryan McBeth posted at X: "Unfortunately, sometimes you don't get a choice. Evil doesn't care if you don't want a war. Evil doesn't care if you want to ignore it in the hope that it just goes away. Evil will come and do evil to you unless you stand up to it and fight. It's not fair, but it is reality."
This is a very interesting hypothetical. What your readers may not know, Thomas, is that Philip Gordon is a key foreign policy advisor to both Biden and Harris and that he is a lock to be the National Security Advisor in a Harris Administration. He has worked closely with Ariane Tabatabai and in 2020 he coauthored a New York Times op-ed with her. In their first sentence, they lamented President Trump’s decision to order the killing of Qassim Suleimani. They said,
“The costs of the United States’ targeted killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, are mounting beyond the already significant risks of Iranian retaliation and subsequent military confrontation.”
Without detailing all the points that Gordon and Tabatabai made, their take home message was this,
“Instead of continuing on its current path, the Trump administration needs to urgently de-escalate tensions with Iran. Some American allies, such as President Emmanuel Macron of France, have offered to help, but so far the administration has declined their services. Mr. Pompeo has expressed disappointment with Europe’s unwillingness to back the American attack on General Suleimani.
A genuine policy of de-escalation would require facing the reality that the maximum pressure campaign has failed. That campaign was designed to curb Iranian violent behavior in the region and stop its nuclear program. The tragic irony is that it now seems set to do the opposite.
If the Trump administration does not move to reduce tensions, it will soon find itself facing the very dilemma the nuclear deal was designed to avoid: the choice between a nuclear Iran or the need to start a war to prevent one.”
You can read the whole op-ed here,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/opinion/irans-crisis-nuclear-expansion.html
I doubt either of them are the leaker; Gordon is too high profile and given her past sympathies, Tabatabai is too obvious a candidate to get away with it. What’s clear is that in a Harris Administration both of them will be even more powerful figures than they are now. They will both end up in senior positions that won't require Senate confirmation.
Their tenure would prove disastrous, especially for Israel. They are both partial to Iran and fully buy into the concept of empowering Iran to serve as a counterweight to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs.
Your hypothetical made me think about what might happen in an alternate universe where it wasn’t hypothetical but true. I think that instead of the alt-right MAGA crowd opposing Trump’s Ukraine policy, he would have convinced that crowd to go along with him. That would have united MAGA Republicans, traditional Republicans and many Democrats in favor of supporting Ukraine. Only the Squad and their fellow travelers would have been in opposition. They would reflexively have opposed anything Trump was for.
Your hypothetical may end up closer to reality than you might think. Ukraine is slowly but surely being defeated by Russia. Ten million Ukranians have left the country and its fertility rate has fallen to 1.0, almost the lowest rate in the world. Russia is suffering too, but much less than Ukraine. Although Russia has a very low fertility rate, its rate is somewhere between 50 percent and 75 percent higher than Ukraine’s. Then there's the death rate which is very high in both nations because of the war but Russia has a much higher population to begin with.
To put this in perspective, with a fertility rate of 1, if the death rate remains constant, Ukraine’s population will decline by 50 percent in 25 years. Sadly, its worse than that because Ukraine’s death rate isn't stable, its rising. Then there’s the fact that if the war doesn't end soon many of those Ukrainian expatriates will settle in their temporary homes permanently and never return.
This article may be interesting to you and your readers. See,
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-population-has-fallen-by-10-million-since-russias-invasion-un-says-2024-10-22/#:~:text=BERLIN%2C%20Oct%2022%20(Reuters),United%20Nations%20said%20on%20Tuesday.
The only hope for Ukraine is for the war to end soon. If it doesn't, Ukraine wont survive and will end up totally dominated by Russia. A Harris Administration will offer more of the same. Under a Harris Administration, Ukraine will bleed to death. If there's any evidence that Harris has a better plan for Ukraine than Biden, I haven't heard it.
As you outlined in your hypothetical, Trump doesn't like losing. That's actually not hypothetical; its obviously true. Trump will get the best deal for Ukraine that's possible under the circumstances. If Harris wins, sadly, Ukraine will go down for the count.
Exactly.
There's one more thing I think is worth adding. Almost exactly one year after their op-ed was published, Biden was inaugurated. Shortly thereafter, Gordon joined the Administration and Tabatabai was hired at the suggestion of Robert Malley (who has since been exiled) to work on Iran policy.
The Biden Administration adopted the recommendations of Gordon and Tabatabai with all the enthusiasm of a young chef following a recipe in a cook book. The Administration did everything they recommended and then some.
None of it worked; Iran metaphorically spat in Biden’s face. Gordon and Tabatabai proved to be spectacularly wrong. Iran couldn't be appeased; it continued to pursue its policy of arming itself and its proxies to the teeth. Biden provided Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief; it accomplished nothing.
What new disasters will Gordon cook up if Harris is elected?
Thanks for making the effort to broaden awareness. I've been calling out the Islamist-loving traitors in the Brandon-Cackles Maladministration for over a year now.
https://christophermessina.substack.com/p/israel-is-fighting-for-its-existence?r=erlb4
The Biden/Harris administration is like most progressives who wear the rose-tinted glasses: if we're just really, really nice to the Iranians they'll play nice with us.
Wrong. Like the progressive secularists they are, the Biden/Harris crowd don't accept the fact that there is such a thing as true evil, and that the Islamist regime is precisely that. As Substacker Ryan McBeth posted at X: "Unfortunately, sometimes you don't get a choice. Evil doesn't care if you don't want a war. Evil doesn't care if you want to ignore it in the hope that it just goes away. Evil will come and do evil to you unless you stand up to it and fight. It's not fair, but it is reality."