Why does the left side with Iran?

Unless my memory is failing me, Iran was and is a rogue state that finances attacks on American interests from cyber warfare to terrorism.  Their treachery goes beyond America.  Iran is a theocracy with a form of Islamic fundamentalism that is a constant threat to Israel and even the non-Muslim nations of Asia.  Their alliance to Russia is a double threat to Europe.

Iran is engaged in an intramural Arab war in the Middle East – with Saudi Arabia as the primary counterpoint.  With the help of Russia, Iran now exerts effective hegemony over Syria, Iraq and Lebanon and growing influence among Palestinians, as well as in some other Arab and North African nations.

With that being noted, it is obvious that every patriotic American should see the danger that Iran opposes to the security of the United States.  We should be united in our support for President Trump’s sanctions against the Iranian regime, his officially declaring the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and his refusal to allow the ill-advised Iranian nuclear deal to shield the radical clerics from avoiding the consequences of their terrorist activities – as the Obama administration did.

For the better part of this country’s history, it was said that political partisanship ends at the shore – meaning that we always show a united front to our friends AND enemies overseas.  Unfortunately, it appears that the zeal to oppose all things Trump has led the left into aligning with our enemies.

In a recent program, MSNBC’s “security analyst,” Ned Price was asked to opine on the growing tension between Iran and the United States.  He had been a constant critic of Trump foreign policy at every turn.  Like so many others at MSNBC, Price’s role is not objective analysis, but to serve as a mouthpiece for the networks preconceived anti-Trump narrative.

In the case of Iran, he lived up to more than his prescribed purpose.  The case-in-point was the sending our military into the waters off the shore of Iran at the order of President Trump – based on the intelligence and recommendations of the State Department and our other intelligence services.

Based on information received from both internal and external sources, Iran was planning an attack on American assets in the region.  It was not to be a direct action by the Iranian military.  That would be too bold and result in a disproportionate response.  Rather it was to be an outlier event using forces sponsored by Iran – potentially terrorist or supposedly quasi-independent militia.

According to the reports, weapons for an attack were being surreptitiously transported aboard civilian vessels.  The movement of the American fleet was not to engage in war as much as to get the Iranians to back down.  It seems to have worked, since the Iranian leaders claimed they had no intention of attacking any American asset.

What should have been an “atta boy” response to Trump is not how the left likes to do things.

Price declared that we were in a most dangerous moment.  Because of the Iranians?  Nope!  Because Trump has been provoking the Iranians.  In fact, Price said that the United States had committed 17 acts of provocation leading up to the current situation.  While he did not list all of them, he said they included terminating the nuclear deal, imposing severe sanctions, declaring the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be a terrorist organization, stopping Iran from selling its oil on the world market.

Ignored was the ravages and carnage of state-sponsored terrorism.  Forgotten are Americans currently being held as hostages in Iran.  Apparently unheard by Price and others is the constant chant of “death to America” that characterizes Iranian sponsored rallies.

Price went on to say that we – meaning the entire world – should be wary of the claims of the Trump administration.  In other words, we should not believe the rationale for sending in the Navy.  Instead, we should believe the Iranians.  Price accused the American administration of concocting false intelligence to create the predicate for the movement of the fleet.

Price declared that such international gamesmanship could lead to war, if not by intent then by miscalculation.  What if one of those supposedly quasi-independent paramilitary groups does, indeed, attack an American asset?  It could lead to a bigger conflict.

What was striking about Price’s assessment of the situation is that it sounded like what the Iranian propaganda mill would, and was, saying.  In sympathizing with the radical Iranian regime, Price was proving to be one of those “witting or unwitting assets.”

If you are inclined to think that his was one man’s opinion – think again.  The obsessively anti-Trump media propped up a string of politicians and pundits with the same anti-American message.

Price was followed on MSNBC by Maryland’s Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen.  His message was exactly the same.  He called Trump’s “series of provocative actions” dangerous.  What if, he hypothecated, the Shia military in Iraq responds to Trump’s alleged provocations?  It could lead to war, he suggested.

Van Hollen likened the influence of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House foreign policy advisor John Bolton to Vice President Dick Chaney and Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld in the lead-up to the Iraq war during the administration of President George W. Bush.

The harmony between the Price punditry and the Van Hollen statements was that Iran has been victimized by the American administration.  Both expressed sympathy for what they considered an understandable and justified reaction.

It is almost impossible – no it IS impossible – to find a time in American history where so many of one political viewpoint have expressed a view in opposition to United States foreign policy and such verbal support for a dangerous rogue nation.  Yes, there were people in the United States who opposed opposing Hitler, but it did not come from supposedly responsible and ethical members of the media – and most certainly not from members of the House or Senate.

While there has long been a “hate America” undercurrent by the radical left, the election of Trump appears to have brought it to the mainstage of the Democratic Party.  We do not jail people for dissent or the most objectionable opinions – and that is a good thing – but must not let the anti-American sentiment become meanstreamed.  The #NeverTrump Resistance Movement pleads that we do not normalize the President, I would suggest that we are in far greater danger if we normalize the rhetoric of Price and Van Hollen.

If we were officially at war with Iran, such aiding and abetting of an enemy would be considered treason.  Not being officially at war creates an important distinction, but it does not make the endorsement of Iran by these reprobates any less offensive.

So, there ‘tis.

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