Trump Advisors want regime change in Iran - Is this a joke?

War with Iran?  Is Trump Seriously Considering This?

The recent news from a Politico article that some of President Trump's foreign policy advisors want regime change in Iran has got to be troubling news.  Has the president not been following the long and unfruitful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Those wars were supposed to show the strength of the US military and the "power of Ameria" to transform those nation-states into Western-style democracies in short time period.  The war in Afghanistan is a never-ending back and forth between the Taliban and ISIS (rumored) and Coalition forces fighting over the same space and cities.  I don't see anything getting better in that country.  

War with Iran would engulf (no pun intended) the Persian Gulf and the Greater Middle East, and this horrible military endeavor will not end well and will plunge the area into total conflict for many, many years.  I believe it will damage our military and the lasting effects will be irreparable, for Iran, the United States, Israel and neighboring countries.

President Trump may feel that in order to prove that he is no puppet of Putin, he will have to attack and defeat Iran and Syria, two client states of Russia.  He seems to have no understanding of how a government works, and what it can do, or what it can't.  If he cannot grasp that, how on earth do people think he can hold onto the prospects of war and its effects?  Syria is going to be a continued quagmire, with Russian, American and now recently exposed Israeli contributions to both sides of the fighting.  Israel wants President Bashar Assad out of power, which will eliminate a source of concern and one less enemy for the State of Israel.  However, Assad is a loyal client of Russia, and Russia has to show that it too will defend its friends, the same way America has to defend Europe and its allies in the Pacific region (Australia, the Philippines, Singapore and Japan).

Knowing this, why would President Trump want to start a fight with another client state of Russia, which will most likely draw in Putin himself. The danger is that this will constitute the first time great powers went to war with each other since World War II.  It will change the power dynamic and could force a nuclear exchange with Putin.  President Trump does not have the mental fortitude to avoid this type of catastrophe.  Iran will engage Israel through his proxies in the region including Hezbollah.  This will force Israel to engage Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which is the most powerful faction within the Iranian government, outside of the Mullahs.  America will have to defend Israel when Iranian and Russian forces retaliate.  I don't see how this conflict doesn't end without some sort of nuclear exchange of tactical nuclear weapons (nuclear bombs with a lower tonnage yield that destroys a smaller area of square mileage) with the Russians.

President Trump's advisors who are pushing this war narrative are, in my opinion, Steve Miller and Steve Bannon, two ultra-nationalists who see war as the only means to change the current state of the world.  Both of these nuts have no problem starting an unnecessary war that will provide no serious benefit to the country at large, or Western civilization.  Who in the Trump White House can challenge the two Steves?  Jared Kushner? Ivanka?  I am not so sure, especially with all the mysterious and troubling people that Trump keeps around, like Dr. Sebastian Gorka, who is a cheerleader for military solutions to almost every foreign policy issue.

I don't want to sound pessimistic, but if President Trump wants war with Iran, I don't see any counter force within the White House to turn him away from this terrible idea.  Jared and Ivanka don't have the influence to overrule President Trump if his ego and pride are on the line if the only solution for the praise he covets is to send America's men and women in the service of their country to another long war with ambiguous successes.  This callous endeavor will spell the end of our military readiness, our ability to deal with difficult situations with military solutions, and the benefit for our overall economy and the American people.  This war will not end well and could lead to horrible consequences for the future of the human race and democracy in the United States.

It is a scary time indeed for all of us on planet earth.

AK