Definition: “If you say that the tail is wagging the dog, you mean that a small or unimportant part of something (the tail) is becoming too important and is controlling the whole thing (the dog).
Wag the Dog is the title of a 1997 black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson and starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. The screenplay concerns a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a war to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal.
If you recall, 1997 was right around the time of the Monica Lewinsky scandal was breaking and the comedic film was all too prescient. It predicted that Bill Clinton would get into an armed conflict with some country — any country — because he knew that never in the history of the Republic has a president lost the confidence and backing of the American people during a time of armed conflict. He knew impeachment was coming, but what he didn’t want to happen was to be driven from the Oval Office. So on March 24, 1999, NATO, led by the United States, launched the two-month bombardment of Yugoslavia and the public’s attention was temporarily diverted from the Clinton/Lewinsky Affair.
This brings us to our current situation. tRump came into office stating that he didn’t want to get entangled in foreign conflicts, but once he saw that his approval ratings were never going to come anywhere close to 50 percent, he withdrew from the Iranian nuclear arms deal and brought known chickenhawks Mike Pompeo on as secretary of state and John Bolton as national security advisor into his administration.
These are not the moves of a man that doesn’t want war, these are the moves of a man desperate for a second term as president (I guess so that he’ll get more time to fuck up everything he hasn’t already fucked up in his first term) and will think nothing of causing the deaths of as many young Americans lives as it takes to stay in office. tRump is getting set to “wag the dog.”
To counteract this madman, some American(s) of towering stature need to travel to Iran and explain that the American people are not eager for war, and all the regime there has to do is ignore tRump for less than another two years and he’ll be out of office.
However, if Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, takes the bait and allows tRump to sucker his country into an armed conflict they will assure that a madman is reelected president in this country and they will have to deal with him for five-and-a-half years.
Diplomatically I know that it will be difficult for the leader of Iran to ignore the saber-rattling of the idiot we have in power in this country for two years, but in doing so, he will assure that war is avoided and the onerous sanctions that are currently in place against his country will be lifted as soon as we vote this clown out of office.
So Jimmy Carter, Bush, Clinton and Obama all need to start packing their bags for a trip to Iran to explain the feelings of the vast majority of our citizens. I know this is not how diplomacy is supposed to be carried out, but these are not normal times in America, and the lives of thousands of our troops might depend on their success.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.