"Trump stops neocon drive towards war with Iran (Video)"
The Duran Quick Take: Episode 428 (January 9, 2020)
https://theduran.com/trump-stops-neocon-drive-towards-war-with-iran-video/

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss U.S. President Trump’s statement signaling an end to military hostilities between the United States and Iran, following, what has been confirmed to be, a symbolic Iranian missile strike on American military targets within Iraq.

[Some introductory palaver ensues basically excusing Trump for having gotten “bullied” by those sinister “neocons” left over from the John Bolton days at the NSC]

[7:03] Alexander Mercouris: “… What the Democrats were up to which was pretty sinister … … Iranian missiles carefully targeted areas of bases and did not hit compounds where American troops were actually located. It’s now confirmed … we now know for a fact that the Iranians did inform the U.S. at least one hour before the strike took place. So the U.S. had all the time it needed to get its own people out of harm’s way. Nobody as a result was killed. Donald Trump is therefore able to come back to Washington, appear in the White House and give this … classic Trump statement in which he said, ‘We made our point. We’ve killed this evil man, Soleimini.” He’s never going to row back on that. He can’t. That would be politically impossible for him to do. You know, ‘We’ve killed this evil man but we’re not out to escalate this thing into World War Three. We will not press on with more attacks on Iran. And ultimately, we look forward to the day – he’s very vague about how it is all going to happen – when the United States and Iran will be friends. He actually says that at the end, which is really quite interesting. So, he has managed to extricate himself through some very deft footwork out of a very dangerous situation.”

… [he does listen to Tucker Carlson, David Stockman, and Pat Buchanan ] …

“He was maneuvered, very cunningly, into a dangerous situation whilst he was on holiday. But he found his way out.” [????? Has he?] And the world can breathe a sigh of relief because – let’s be quite clear – if there had been a U.S. military response to these Iranian missile strikes, the thing would have spiraled out of control.” … “So, it has been contained. Lots of lessons learned from this. But we can all breathe a sigh of relief. … And we’ve come in for an enormous number of attacks from all sorts of people whom I think have been very easily manipulated by some of the stories they’ve been hearing – sorry to be as blunt about it as that – We are not pro-Iran. We have no illusions about how ruthless the Iranians can be in promoting Iranian national interests as they perceive them. We don’t think General Solemani was a saint with clean hands. … We don’t think that General Solemani as the Arch Terrorist Mastermind. I don’t even think he was as important as people are saying. But ultimately, our analysis has been vindicated by events. And I’m going to be clear: I think it is the one that Donald Trump shares.

[HE MAY SHARE THEM NOW – AFTER HIS COLOSSAL FUCK UP -- BUT HE DIDN’T SHARE THEM BEFORE AND HE MOST LIKELY WILL NOT AND VERY SOON. AND WHEN DO THE DEAD IRANIANS AND IRAQIS GET TO “WALK BACK” THEIR DEATHS, SAY “OOPS, MY ALMOST NOT SO BAD” AND LIVE AGAIN?]

[more … “looking like a true leader … “they want their wars ...” CIA played a role in this. … He depends on the advice given him by his intelligence and security advisers. … He needs to deal with Mike Pompeo who is not his friend … Trump may make “mistakes” but he is not as sinister as Hillary Clinton. If she had been president, it would have been very different. blah, blah ...]