For awhile there it actually looked like Trump was gonna do an alright thing. And then...

I would say conflict with Iran is inevitable at this point, but I don’t see World War 3 evolving from it. Russia and China have to much to lose from it.

https://apnews.com/597e7f2b20b21af959e4c6983b255c37

How does anyone know what he is going to do? none of us do.

Iraq will hopefully have something to say about what has happened.
Will Iraq ask for the U.S troops to leave Iraq? Is this the outcome desired? Who knows. We will see.

The percieved right thing may not be possible to do with so many warmongers on all sides and in positions of action. We have to wait and see what is actually playing behind the scenes.
Clearly another Benghazi was not desirable but the removal of the general is odd given the potential repurcussions.
There are plenty who act like this General is suddenly on the radar but he clearly has been around for a long time and for a long time acted subversively against American interests and lives.
He had visited the White house in the past and whilst I haven't investigated what he was doing there it may indicate at what point intelligence considered him a threat.

This may well turn into a situation like the Kurd situation with Turkey a few months back. Where things turn for an entirely other outcome which was planned to begin with but not revealed or apparent at the immediate moment when it was happening.

"How does anyone know what he is going to do? none of us do."

This is sort of the problem with Trump's leadership in a nutshell. If your allies, your enemies, and even your own supporters can't calculate what you're going to do next, then the risk of any side miscalculating grows and grows.

Trump's Middle East policy is all over the map, and it doesn't seem like he has a clear vision or sense of what our interests are. He routinely trashes our allies publicly, and few countries except maybe Israel and Saudi Arabia feel like America really has their back anymore. Relations with Turkey are at their lowest point ever, and if Turkey won't supply troops or even be willing to host American troops then there's little chance of staging a successful invasion of Iran.

Whatever his other faults, George W. Bush assembled a "coalition of the willing" to follow us into Iraq. I don't see too many allies following us into war with Iran this time. Not only because Trump is so detested internationally, but because Afghanistan and Iraq turned out so poorly. And because a real war with Iran would be 5x the war that Iraq was.

The best we can hope for is to contain Iran Cold War-style until their government becomes friendlier.

I've heard some experts already say that the current situation is also a bit to blame to the fall of Saddam Hussein. Not that I mourn him, but with Saddam at least we had somebody who knew the situation well and knew how to control it, and after his execution we could see that the stability Bush offered wasn't there. But also, the weapons of mass destruction the sole reason behind the war against Iraq, have to this day never been found.

And Bolton Trump's advisor, I am told that he was also the guy who said the evidence of those weapons was irrefutable. Where the "planned attacks" that lead to this action also out of the big magic hat that Bolton is wearing? I wonder.

And indeed being unpredictable is the entire issue with Trump in a nutshell, and having such a man in the lead of one of the most powerful nations, all of its secrets and also the man who has the authority to fire nuclear weapons is a very very dangerous combination for the entire world, and thus including and not limited to the U.S. itself.

But what Trump could also bump is head on is the relation with the E.U. Except for Germany and France most countries supported Bush back then, but will they support Trump now? After Trump has been telling the EU not to rely on the US anymore? Can he rely on the EU then? Not to mention that many countries still have a bad taste in their mouths from the Iraq war against Hussein, so are they still willing (read: foolish enough) to follow Trump as they followed Bush before, and that they were against the cancelling of the treaty in the first place. (I see Boris Johnson crazy enough though, but I think the trouble with Brexit requires more attention now and the UK cannot afford to pick sides in this matter).

And indeed Turkey being more and more flirting with Putin may not be in Trump's favor, either.

"The best we can hope for is to contain Iran Cold War-style until their government becomes friendlier."

That and a more competent U.S. president, I must add. We may not have a WWIII now (I won't rule it out either), but how knows what more impulses will come next if Trump gets another term?

Now I wonder about Israel. Ally to the US and Iran wants a good excuse to wipe it off the map anyway, and it looks like they got that excuse now...

Oh well, the only prediction I can make is that whatever happens next... nobody saw it coming.... (but is that a good thing?)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-netanyahu-nuclear/netanyahu-in-apparent-stumble-calls-israel-nuclear-power-idUSKBN1Z40CS

"We have nukes"? That worries me even more... But perhaps it could keep Iran from doing anything stupid against Israel... No time to read that article now, but I hope I can take a look later...

Iraq will hopefully have something to say about what has happened.""" They have they are on Irans side now. good job