Accusing a country of aggressive action against another country that America might feel a duty to defend is NO idle thing…
Donald Trump just did this referring to two oil tankers that have been attacked…
(Donald Trump has truth issues…Right now he has AG investigating THE Intelligence Community )
He has blamed Iran for the actions….
Trump has been knocking Iran for the deal they had with President Obama and the European’s…
He has applied more pressure on Iran in his typical go ‘hard’ brand of deal making trying to get the Iranians to the table so he can get a better deal…
He hasn’t…
The European’s aren’t happy either …
Now Trump has a aggressive action in the Gulf….
He blames Iran…
Now what?
“The problem is twofold for them,” said John E. McLaughlin, a deputy C.I.A. director during the Iraq war. “One is people will always rightly question intelligence because it’s not an exact science. But the most important problem for them is their own credibility and contradictions.”
The task is all the more formidable for Mr. Trump, who himself has assailed the reliability of America’s intelligence agencies and even the intelligence chiefs he appointed, suggesting they could not be believed when their conclusions have not fit his worldview.
At one point shortly before taking the oath of office, he compared intelligence agencies to Nazi Germany and ever since has cast doubt on their findings about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. This year, he repudiated his intelligence chiefs for their assessments of issues like Iran, declaring that “they are wrong” and “should go back to school.” And just this week, he rebuked the C.I.A. for using a brother of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as an informant, saying, “I wouldn’t let that happen under my auspices.”
All of that can raise questions when international tension flares up, like the explosion of the two oil tankers on Thursday, a provocation that raised anxiety about the world’s most important oil shipping route and the prospect of escalation into military conflict. When Mr. Trump told Fox News on Friday that “Iran did do it,” he was asking his country to accept his word.
“Trump’s credibility is about as solid as a snake oil salesman,” said Jen Psaki, who was the White House communications director and top State Department spokeswoman under Mr. Obama. “That may work for selling his particular brand to his political base, but during serious times, it leaves him without a wealth of good will and trust from the public that what he is saying is true even on an issue as serious as Iran’s complicity in the tanker explosions.”…
image…newsmax.com
Jeremy Corbyn has questioned whether the government has “credible evidence” to show Iran is behind the attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said responsibility for Thursday’s attacks “almost certainly” lies with the Iranian regime.
But the Labour leader tweeted that there was no evidence for this.
Mr Hunt responded that Mr Corbyn’s comments were “pathetic” and said he should back British intelligence.
It is the second time in the past few weeks that tankers appear to have been attacked in the region and comes amid escalating tension between Iran and the United States.
The US military released video footage which it said proved Iran was behind Thursday’s attacks on the Norwegian and Japanese tankers – something Iran has categorically denied.
Although Iran has denied being behind the explosions, experts believe it could be a response to US sanctions intended to stop other nations from purchasing Iranian oil.
After the sanctions were tightened last month, Iran announced that “if it could not export its oil, no other country would be allowed to export theirs”, Dr Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, from the Royal United Services Institute, said….
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48645280