Words & Phrases we can ‘totally and completely obliterate’

Trump’s falsehoods endanger national security.

The “tell” in Donald Trump’s lie about the results of the U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites was “completely and totally.” It is one thing to claim (falsely) that we “obliterated” the Iranian program, but “completely and totally obliterate”? After all, “obliterate” means “to remove utterly.” Did we truly “completely and totally remove utterly” Iran’s nuclear threat? Well, no. We did not.

For one thing, approximately 880 pounds of 60% enriched uranium is “missing.” The Iranians had apparently moved the stockpile stored underground at the Isfahan facility. Moreover, even the most optimistic talk from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggests the program was set back only a couple of years. The U.S. assessment suggested we bought only a few months. The Trump team spent days frantically trying to deny that, even attempting to divert attention from its misrepresentation by attacking Fox News Pentagon reporter Jennifer Griffin, perhaps the only real reporter left there.

Moreover, we did not even try to hit all underground facilities. “The US military did not use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran’s largest nuclear sites [Isfahan] last weekend because the site is so deep that the bombs likely would not have been effective, the US’ top general told senators during a briefing on Thursday,” CNN reported. You cannot “obliterate” what you never try to hit. Worse, the Iranians have now learned that the way to protect their sites is to go as far underground as Isfahan.

To add insult to Trump’s bruised ego, the Washington Post reported, “The United States obtained intercepted communication between senior Iranian officials discussing this month’s military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program and remarking that the attack was less devastating than they had expected, said four people familiar with the classified intelligence circulating within the U.S. government.” Ouch.

The Iranians are not the only ones underwhelmed. “I just don’t think the president was telling the truth when he said the program was obliterated,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said after a belated briefing. If Iran, as he said, retains “significant remaining capability,” then we didn’t “obliterate” (let alone “completely and totally obliterate”) Iran’s nuclear program.

In a similar vein, Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), who holds a PhD in nuclear physics, told reporters: “I was very disappointed that we learned very little about the inventory of high enriched uranium — 60% enriched uranium — and [its] whereabouts and what that means for the time to Iran's first nuclear device." In other words, coherent policy is impossible without an accurate understanding of the status of Iran’s program, something Trump obviously has no interest in determining.

The dispute is not solely about the “completely and totally” unreliable U.S. president nor the reputation and nonpartisan nature of the intelligence community. Should Trump continue his dangerous charade and conclude that there is no longer any need to negotiate, we will have the worst of all worlds: a wounded regime with the capacity and incentive to race toward a nuclear weapon, which it will bury far underground. (To make matters even more confusing, Trump now says talks are back on again; Iran says they are not.)

“If you really want to have reasonable confidence in a solution over time," Christopher Ford, a former assistant undersecretary of state for nonproliferation in Trump's first term, told NPR, “you need to have an agreement with some kind of cooperative verification and ongoing monitoring.” Something—I don’t know—like the Iran nuclear deal Trump ripped up in 2018 without an alternative in place?

By grossly exaggerating the degree of success, Trump loses the plot. The purpose of hard power is to trigger meaningful negotiations toward an improved, long-term version of the Iran nuclear deal. This is what “coercive diplomacy” is all about. With his obsessive need for dominance and his desire to “completely and totally” prove his critics wrong, Trump again fails to understand that there is no permanent military solution to the Iranian nuclear threat.

Veteran Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross wrote, “At minimum, the United States should take advantage of the profound damage to Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure by pushing for a diplomatic agreement on the future of both.” Rather than rely on Trump’s chest-beating or wait around until the next Israeli strike, the United States needs to operate in the real world. “Washington would be far better off working toward agreements with intrusive monitoring and clear understandings about the consequences of violations,” Ross argued.

Trump foolishly thinks that he can so intimidate Iran (as he does his domestic enemies) that it would not dare try something on his watch. That is simply delusional. (Moreover, if the news report is true, Iran is anything but intimidated by his empty boasts.)

No wonder Trump wants to clamp down on notice to, consultation with, and even briefings for Congress. He surely does not want to give lawmakers grounds to prove that his bluster was baseless, the problem remains, and only negotiations (based on coercive diplomacy) can achieve a permanent solution.

So, let’s stop using “obliterate” (and exercise extreme skepticism when Trump dresses up lies with adjectives such as “completely and totally”) when the truth is: “The military successfully completed its specified mission, setting back Iran’s program some undermined amount of time but not destroying Iran’s capacity or will to rebuild it. In fact, in dressing up limited action as unalloyed success, Trump might have incentivized Iran to sprint to manufacture a nuclear weapon.”

You can see why Trump and his flunkies prefer to lie.

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