Mr. President,

Just when you had us on our feet cheering your foreign policy courage in meeting with Kim Jong-Un and Vladimir Putin, with all of the Swamp against you, you send an all-caps tweet threatening war with Iran.

I realize this appears to be the same tactic you used with Kim of North Korea – very tough talk ahead of the summit, to put the United States in a position of strength. However, in neither the North Korea nor Russia exchanges were you doing the PNAC crowd’s bidding. They don’t want hot wars with North Korea or Russia; they want the Cold War with Russia back, so they can funnel tax revenues to their friends.

Not so with Iran. They’ve been trying to pick that fight since at least the Clinton years and they’ll do anything they can to paint you into a corner to force you to back up your bellicose statements. Please don’t hand them the paint can and brush, especially after you just stood toe to toe with them on Russia and told them to pound sand.

Here is a request from a net taxpayer: leave the Persians alone. Neither you nor American taxpayers will benefit from a war with Iran. AIPAC is going to deliver over 70% of the Jewish vote to the Democrats no matter what you do (check the Jewish vote totals in the 2004 and 2008 elections after Bush’s Middle East Wars). Taxpayers will sacrifice blood and treasure for…nothing.

Honestly, we don’t even benefit from sanctions on Iran. Reducing the supply of oil and other Iranian exports just makes the whole world poorer than it would be if Iran could trade freely – I don’ t need to explain supply and demand to a Wharton Business School graduate.

Neither do American taxpayers derive any benefit from Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. I know that’s political heresy, but I’m talking to the man who got elected for heretical speech. Ask yourself: Why should American taxpayers care which is the most powerful country in the Middle East? They shouldn’t. That they have any interest in the question is just a PNAC Jedi mind trick.

We should be the well-wishers to Israel’s freedom and independence, but the defender only of our own. Besides, Iran is never going to attack Israel. If you are truly concerned they might, then negotiate a mutual defense treaty with Israel and send it to the Senate for ratification. I’d rather we stop handing out war guarantees, but this is one that will never be used.

The truth is the anti-Iran drumbeat is just more of the Swamp’s failed foreign policy you campaigned against in 2016. Don’t let them trick you into thinking it’s any different. America First!

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

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