The Trump administration had no plan for what to do if Iran closed off the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the U.S. bombing the country, according to a report.
The Pentagon and the National Security Council had completely underestimated how willing Iran would be to shut off the vital shipping lane between Iran and Oman, through which around one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes, multiple sources told CNN.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sparked a worldwide oil crisis, with prices rising above $100 a barrel for the first time in four years. Multiple sources familiar with the war operations said they are in shock that Trump’s national security team failed to plan for what was considered the “worst-case scenario” after starting a war with Iran. [emphasis added]
A simple explanation for Trump’s non-rally is that his war is unpopular. I found that on average, just 38% of voters said they approved of the U.S. strikes in Iran.
But a full accounting of why polling rallies have happened historically reveals a more interesting story of public opinion about presidents and their wars.
I compiled approval data for every major U.S. military conflict since 1941 and compared the change in net presidential approval after the onset of hostilities. Then I went back to the political science literature on rally effects to figure out why Trump’s numbers haven’t moved. Scholars have identified roughly five conditions that produce a rally. Trump’s war fails on nearly all of them. [emphasis added]
Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports the background:
Ali also claimed to have had major help from state Sen. Mark Finchem, R-Prescott, who at the time was serving in the Arizona House of Representatives representing a district near Tucson.
Finchem’s support of “Stop the Steal” was clear in his social media postings, where he used #StopTheSteal 62 times from Nov. 19 to Jan. 6. After Trump supporters rioted at the Capitol, Finchem stopped using the hashtag. He was also present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and was much closer to the violence than he had claimed.
Finchem was also integral in spreading misinformation about the 2020 elections, much of which was flagged by Twitter as being incorrect, and was the driving force in Arizona for an event at a Phoenix hotel in late November. At that event, Trump’s lead attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and other pro-Trump figures gathered with state GOP lawmakers and the president’s supporters to discuss baseless theories that Joe Biden won Arizona’s election by fraud.
Finchem has said that the hearing was integral in convincing Senate leadership to pursue the “audit” of the election results. The 2021 partisan election review was led by a Florida-based firm whose leader shared the Stop the Steal hashtag.
And Finchem was an unindicted co-conspirator in Attorney General Kris Mayes’ case against the 11 Arizona “fake electors” who, after Trump’s loss, sent a document to Congress falsely claiming Trump had won and they were the duly appointed electors for the state. [emphasis added]
