Trump is desperate for a big win after the Iran debacle

[marmar]

Trump is desperate for a big win after the Iran debacle
The president is eyeing Cuba and Greenland to erase the sting of defeat

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published June 23, 2026 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) If there’s one big no-no in international diplomatic negotiations, it’s for one of the players to physically threaten the envoys. The negotiators are there to try to reach an agreement, so when they are threatened with death by the leader of the opposing side, it can be a bit of a poison pill. But such rules are designed for mature adults who understand how international relations work. America, unfortunately, has a leader who sees the world through the lens of gangster movies and can’t keep his mouth shut.

....(snip)....

As the smoke from the agreement clears, a consensus has emerged — even among MAGA media, as Salon’s Sophia Tesfaye has explained — that the U.S. has suffered a profound defeat. This is largely because Trump had no strategy beyond assuming that bombing Iran and killing some members of the nation’s leadership would instantly lead to unconditional surrender and new leadership, which would then welcome Western businesses eager to build resorts on the Strait of Hormuz. For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently assumed that once Trump was committed to the war, he would not back off and would instead escalate as necessary to achieve the goal of regime change. Neither of them understood who and what they were dealing with, and the result is that the U.S. is weaker, Iran is stronger and Israel is even more isolated.

....(snip)....

So, what’s next on the president’s list? Well, it’s pretty clear that it’s going to be Cuba. He’s been talking about the communist nation quite a bit lately, even telling reporters in March, “I do believe I’ll have the honor of taking Cuba,” and asserting “I can do anything I want” with the country. He clearly sees it as an easy victory.

As Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir pointed out in an historical analysis of the Cuba-America dynamic, “Miami-expat monomania remains a curiously powerful force within Republican politics,” and Trump is a Florida man now. He is also listening to his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose politics were fermented in that anti-communist petri dish — and who tells him that this one will be easy. One can’t help but wonder if, after the Iran mess, Trump is listening to anyone who tells him that these days. But he will likely take the country because he knows that Cuba is no Iran. It truly doesn’t have any “cards” to play, and its people are currently being starved by the siege being waged by the U.S. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/06/23/trump-is-desperate-for-a-big-win-after-the-iran-debacle/

[NNadir]

1. In the early sixties, if I recall correctly, a miltary authority...

...superimposed a map of Cuba on the United States for the benefit of John Kennedy showing it stretched from Washington to Chicago and the discussed American casualties in the taking of Tarawa atoll's 300 acres of the Island of Betio, where over 6000 soldiers died in three days.

Cuba is suffering to be sure and is no doubt weakened but a US invasion is likely to be costly, particularly when incompetent childish thugs try to run it

[Whip-poor-will]

2. He's a life long loser

Losers don't win anything