Here’s How We’ll Bring Iran to Its Knees

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Dan Drezner, who refuses to ever give Donald Trump credit for his successes,¹ has once again adopted a cynical attitude toward our president’s foreign policy tactics. In this case, he’s being snarky about Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran deal:

Plan B begins to bear more than a passing resemblance to the Underpants Gnomes Theory of Profit. Step 1 is terminating the Iran Deal. Step 3 is Iran complying with all U.S. demands. Step 2? Step 2 is a wee bit hazy.

There are at least two possibilities for Step 2:

  • We will starve Iran into submission, just like we did with North Korea.
  • We will bomb Iran into submission, just like we did with North Vietnam.

Those both worked great! There are other possibilities too, like encouraging the entire Middle East to engage in a brutal war of Sunni vs. Shia. Really, there are loads of options here. Just ask John Bolton.

¹Drezner is the tenured professor who apparently has so much free time that he is now past the 300 mark in his #ToddlerinChief series on Twitter. This series is frivolous and ill-mannered and I urge you not to read it. I also urge Tufts University to discipline Professor Drezner for his disrespectful attitude toward our president.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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