Trump closes year waging war on 4 fronts, heralding ‘decimation,’ ‘eradication’
(Originally published Dec. 30 in “What in the World“) Trump said Monday the U.S. forces had struck a narcotics facility inside Venezuela.
There are still no details on where specifically the attack supposedly took place. No one—not the CIA, the Pentagon, the White House, nor the Venezuelan government—would comment on Trump’s announcement. But Trump has been massing the “largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America” in the Caribbean to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and has authorized the CIA to undertake covert operations there. So, there’s that. “There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said. “We hit all the boats, and now we hit the area… it’s the implementation area. That’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”
Trump also Monday threatened Iran with renewed attacks if it attempted to revive its nuclear program. Back in June, American B-2 bombers joined Israeli airstrikes in Iran by dropping 12 “bunker buster” bombs on Iran’s Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant. Trump claimed the airstrike obliterated the site, but experts worry Iran simply moved its weapons-grade uranium before the attack.
In November, Tehran refused to let UN inspectors back in the country to check and on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran is “in a full-scale war” with the United States and Israel, as well as Europe. So, at a joint news conference at Mar-a-Lago Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said: “I hope they are not trying to build up again, because if they are, we’re going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that build up.”
Trump is now prepared to wage war on four fronts. Following airstrikes early last week against Islamic State remnants in Syria, Trump launched Christmas Day air strikes against ISIS militants in Nigeria. “They were going to do it earlier,” Trump reportedly told an interviewer. “And I said, ‘nope, let’s give a Christmas present.’ … They didn’t think that was coming, but we hit them hard. Every camp got decimated.”
The Nigerian strike reportedly involved roughly a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a U.S. Navy warship in the Gulf of Guinea. So, we’re gonna need more of those missiles. The Pentagon has thus expanded an order for Tomahawk cruise missiles to $785.2 million, up from $401.2 million, so it can dole them out to the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and allies Australia and Japan.
Japan might want them sooner than later. After Trump earlier this month approved an $11 billion arms sale to Taiwan, China is throwing one of its well-staged temper tantrums by organizing its largest-ever military exercises around Taiwan. The drills, dubbed “Justice Mission 2025,” will kick off at 6pm tonight local time with live fire and are intended to demonstrate how China could blockade the renegade province as a warning to what Beijing calls Taiwan’s “separatist forces.”
Speaking of cruise missiles, North Korea. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un on Sunday oversaw the test launch of multiple long-range cruise missiles off the west coast. Last week, he was busy watching the testing of long-range surface-to-air missiles and inspecting construction of the country’s nuclear-powered submarine. North Korea’s missiles are now clearly reliable enough for export—which is why Russia has been using them (not to mention North Korean troops) in Ukraine, and giving Pyongyang help with its intercontinental ballistic missile program in return.
The only conflict where Trump is suing for peace, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, looks like it’s set to keep going after Russia accused Kyiv of a drone strike against Putin’s dacha in rural Novgorod. Trump met Sunday at Mar-a-Lago with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to try to talk him into ceding to Russia the land bridge to Crimea. But Russia said the drone strike would receive “the most serious response.”