War in the Age of Trump w/ Patrick Cockburn

On this edition of Parallax Views, the prolific war correspondent Patrick Cockburn, who has been reporting on the Middle East since 1975, joins us to discuss his new book War in the Age of Trump: The Fall of ISIS, The Betrayal of the Kurds, and the Conflict with Iran. We begin the conversation with Patrick's thoughts on objectivity in journalism and whether war reporting takes a toll on journalists in that line of work. From there we discuss the foreign policy of Obama, Obama and his advisor Ben Rhodes taking issue with the "Washington Playboy" and the D.C. foreign policy "Blob", and Trump's foreign policy. In relation Trump and foreign policy Patrick shines a light on the assassination of Iran's Gen. Quasem Soleimani and his understanding of it beyond the way it's been covered in the beltway press. Patrick argues that these elements got Soleimani wrong and this leads us to discuss the role of hubris, whether coming from Iran, the U.S., or other players, in the great game taking place on the geopolitical Grand Chessboard and where Iraq falls in the conflicts.

Also covered:

- The strange relationship between Iran and the U.S. that features both conflict and underdiscussed cooperation.

- Why is the U.S. always at odds with Iran? The overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953 and other events. Why would the Shia-dominant Iran not be a friend of the U.S. in the War on Terror against Sunni Wahabists and Salafists?
- Ignorance in the D.C. beltway, the Western elite, and the media on the Middle East and its complexities as a region.
- The Middle East as a political graveyard for multiple U.S. Presidents including Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan.
- The story of ISIS and its fall
- Western elite failures in the Middle East such as Libya after the death of Gaddafi; Syria and Assad; the lack of learning lessons from past failures on the part of the Western elite class
- The impossible position of the Kurd; Turkey and the Kurds; the U.S.'s relationship to the Kurds
- Could we have seen the failures of U.S. foreign policy coming?; the style of War in the Age of Trump
- Criticism of U.S. foreign policy is not necessarily about supporting figures like Gaddafi in Libya or Assad in Syria
- News from Damascus involving coronavirus
- Trump's isolation vs. the elite's interventionist failures; is another way, different from both of these approaches possible; the Cold War mindset of elite interventionist foreign policy
- Preoccupation with Russia as a threat
- And more!

This Episode Brought to You By:

The War State:
The Cold War Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex and the Power Elite, 1945-1963
by
Michael Swanson
of
The Wall Street Window