Article by Philip Carl Salzman in "PJMedia":
Trump
Derangement Syndrome is an obsession, virtually universal among
Democrats and the mass media, who are opposing, discrediting, and
destroying President Trump. The result is that policies and issues that
should be considered on their substance and merit are instead judged
according to whatever the president supports or however the president
acts. Opposition to the president is the overriding necessity for those
with TDS, even if that requires rejecting previous held positions, or
siding with bad policies and with evil actors. In other words, Democrat
politicians and members of the mass media have jettisoned their moral
responsibilities to provide reasoned consideration and objective
information, in their quest to overthrow a duly elected president.
Let
us take, for example, the recent engagement between the Trump
administration and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Democrat and media TDS
is seen clearly in their attempt to blame the president for executing an
internationally acknowledged terrorist threat, whitewashing a leader of
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard immediately responsible for acts of
violence against Americans, as well as a long history of the same, and
plans for more in the future. His death was likened in the media to the
deaths of Princess Diana and Martin Luther King. Probably on some
program I missed, the death of Soleimani was compared with the deaths of
Gandhi and Mother Theresa. It is telling that the Democrat House
majority denounced Trump’s elimination of the world’s most notorious
terrorist, when they had nothing whatever to say when President Obama
used drones to eliminate hundreds, yes, hundreds of terrorists. It would
be fair to call this TDS hypocrisy.
Democrat
legislators and candidates for the presidency have been so blinded by
TDS that they have forgotten what Iran is, which I would like to remind
them here: The Islamic Republic Regime is a theocratic totalitarian
despotism, compelling their subjects to conform to their radical
religious ideas and rules, on pain of imprisonment, torture, and
execution. The ayatollahs running the Iran theocracy adopted as their raison d’etre
the expansion of Shia dominance and supremacy. Throughout the history
of Islam, from the sixth century, there has been a strong imperialistic
tendency, seen in the imposition of Islam through the sword everywhere
from India to Morocco, West Africa to Iberia. Now Iran is working to
establish the Shia crescent, from Iran through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon
to the Mediterranean. These basic facts are avoided in the West, lest
the enunciators be accused of ISLAMOPHOBIA!
It
is important to keep in mind that the Islamic Republic holds to no
earthly rules, following only the exclusive rules of Allah, as the
founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, made clear.
“The fundamental difference between Islamic government, on the one
hand, and constitutional monarchy and republics, on the other, is this:
whereas the representatives of the people or the monarch in such regimes
engage in legislation, in Islam the legislative power and competence to
establish laws belong exclusively to God Almighty.” Khomeini also made explicit
what Westerners often have trouble grasping, that Islam is not just a
personal religion, but also a political movement and structure: “When
anyone studies a little or pays a little attention to the rules of
Islamic government, Islamic politics, Islamic society and Islamic
economy he will realize that Islam is a very political religion. Anyone
who will say that religion is separate from politics is a fool; he does
not know Islam or politics.”
Forty
years ago, the newly formed Islamic Republic of Iran declared war on
the United States, as they made and make clear with their slogans,
“Death of America” and “America the Great Satan.” The ayatollahs see
destroying Satan as their duty to Allah, above which nothing is more
important. Ayatollah Khomeini said,
“Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you
all....There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings
of Mohammed] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this
mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit
upon those foolish souls who make such a claim!” He continued,
“Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in
the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life, and martyrdom. In
both cases, victory and success are ours.”
The
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic today is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He governs in the spirit of Ayatollah Khomeini, and his views
on the United States are much the same: “We seriously suspect the
agents of the Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous
terrorist acts and cannot believe the people who kidnap Philippines
nationals, for instance, or behead U.S. nationals are Muslims.” Khamenei
has consistently endorsed Iranian expansionism by supporting the
Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in its organization and funding of Arab
Shia proxies. He says, “The Islamic Republic is proud to be the target of the rage of the world's greatest Satan.” Khamenei is equally beneficent about
the “Little Satan.” Israel: “The great powers have dominated the
destiny of the Islamic countries for years and... installed the Zionist
cancerous tumor in the heart of the Islamic world... Many of the
problems facing the Muslim world are due to the existence of the Zionist
regime.” But, in his view,
condemnation is not sufficient: “It is the mission of the Islamic
Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.”
TDS
Americans nonetheless rush to the defense of Iran, blaming Iranian
actions on America, that is, on President Trump. Major figures in
national Democrat politics, such as TDS Democrat primary contenders for
the presidential nomination, have blamed President Trump for the Iranian
ground-to-air missile that shot down a passenger liner killing all 290
aboard. Mayor Pete Buttigieg said, “Innocent civilians are now dead
because they were caught in the middle of an unnecessary and unwanted
military tit for tat.” Because Mayor Pete does not think
that the president should defend America by killing terrorists who are
attacking it, because whatever President Trump does is, by definition,
wrong. So too with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, candidate for the
Democrat nomination for president, who claims,
“Make no mistake: Trump’s actions are an act of war,” as if Iran has
not been at war with the U.S. since the founding of the Islamic
Republic, and as recent attacks have confirmed yet again. But if TDS
Democrats and media blame President Trump for the Iranian downing of the
flight, the many Iranians in the streets of Iranian cities are calling out
“clerics get lost” and “death to the dictator,” while avoiding stepping
on American and Israeli flags on the streets. A Canadian business
executive echoes TDS Democrat-blaming, which is fairly common in today’s pacifist and socialist Canada.
Another TDS reaction
to Commander-in-Chief Trump’s order to execute the world’s top
terrorists was that this was going to lead to World War Three. This is
factually nonsense, as Iran is relatively weak militarily compared to
any of the great powers, and especially compared to the U.S. And no
great power would be likely to intervene militarily on Iran’s behalf. If
the U.S. were to invade Iran, it would no more be “the mother of all
battles” than America’s intervention in Iraq against Saddam’s forces
was. Slightly more serious was Tucker Carlson’s argument that any
further action on the part of the U.S. would lead to a land invasion of
hundreds of thousands of troops and a new Middle East quagmire full of
American blood and lost billions. But that is simplistic thinking, and
ignores the examples of President Trump’s previous interventions, such
as his successful air and special forces attack on the Islamic State
territorial Caliphate, which Trump destroyed. If we could but avoid
hysteria, it is clear that President Trump’s policy of “maximum
[economic] pressure” has borne fruit, and is likely to undermine the
Islamic Republic Regime in the longer run. Beyond that, there are many
different gradations of military intervention, like destroying through
air attacks military targets such as nuclear bomb sites, and economic
sites, such as oil wells and processing plants. These would not require
boots on the ground and excessive risk to American personnel. And this
is the preferred military strategy of President Trump, who is not in
favor of foreign land wars.
The
tragedy of TDS is that it keeps opponent legislators and candidates and
their media lackeys from thinking clearly as they strive to obstruct
the president no matter at what cost to the national interest. Where are
the careful and well-informed critiques? They are submerged in the
extreme rhetoric of “never Trump” TDS, so that intelligent and grounded
options are no longer put forward. The Democrat opposition and the mass
media have given up doing their duty to America and for the American
people, blocked by their virulent TDS.