DEMOCRATIC VS. REPUBLICAN GROUPS

We all know that certain groups of people tend to vote Republican and others Democratic.  The Pew Research Group has come up with a figure (see below) showing by just how much various groups tilt toward Republican or Democratic from 1992 through 2014, but to summarize, here are some results of the study:

Democrats hold advantages in party identification among blacks, Asians, Hispanics, well-educated adults and Millennials. Republicans have leads among whites – particularly white men, those with less education and evangelical Protestants – as well as members of the Silent Generation.*

(Click on figure to enlarge)

A more recent study covering 1994 through 2017 shows those with no more than a high school degree shift more toward Republicans.
By contrast, white voters with no more than a high school education have moved more to the GOP over the last 10 years, though there has been little change since 2015. As recently as 2009, these voters were divided in leaned partisanship. Since then, Republicans have held significant advantages, including a 23-percentage-point lead in 2017 (58% Republican, 35% Democratic).**
I find this strange for a less educated group shift toward a political party that caters to the more wealthy (Republicans).  Elsewhere I have concluded, especially for white males with high school or less, this may be related to the Democrat's emphasis on women, minorities, and Gays who the white males feel are taking their jobs and keeping wages low.***

* https://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/
** https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups/
*** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/07/democratic-economic-initiatives.html

ECONOMiC DOWNTURN IN 2020? AND CONSUMER DEBT - UPDATE

This item amplifies some of the economic problems I see in consumers.  Particularly addressed is credit card debt as well as concerns by CFOs of major companies. (SeeSoybean Socialism, Manufacturing Recession, And Consumer Debt (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2020/01/soybean-socialismmanufacturing.html)  Interestingly,  CFOs say they expect consumer spending to be strong in 2020, but look at the debt consumers are handling.

Expectations for a U.S. downturn have jumped since the beginning of 2019, with 97% of CFOs saying that a downturn (either a slowdown or a recession) has already begun or will occur by the end of 2020. Compare that to 88% who said the same about 2020 in the first quarter of last year.*

43% of CFOs say consumer spending will be strong in 2020, down from the 54% who said the same for 2019. Just 22% expect strong business spending (vs. 32% a year ago).
CFOs said "trade wars" and "uncertainty" are their 2 top company concerns.*

(Click on figure to enlarge)
The figure was taken from AXIOS Item 6. Top executives are pessimistic about 2020 (January 9, 2020)*

There are other indicators used by researchers at MIT that a recession may occur within the next six months:
...the researchers analyzed four market factors — industrial production, nonfarm payrolls, stock market return and the slope of the yield curve — on a monthly basis. They then measured how the current relationship between the four metrics compares to historical readings.*
A recession is expected whenever the indicator rises above 70 and currently reads 76.*

I keep writing about consumer debt being at an all-time high.  In spite of this, FICO Scores are at an all-time high.**  There are several articles about credit card debt by states.***  I don't know why but different references give different conclusions as to which state has the lowest credit card balance.  The CNBC reference says it is Iowa at $4,774 (but Value Penquin and Business Insider give Iowa as $6,696 in credit card debt).  Business Insider gives the lowest Credit Card debt to be Ohio at $5,560 and Value Penquin gives Ohio as $5,446.  CNBC indicates all the states with the lowest credit card debt are the Southern States (7 out of 10) with a few Purple States (3 out of 10).

ValuePenguin found that more than 40% of all US households carry credit card debt, with the average American household carrying a balance of $5,700. For only indebted households, which excludes people who pay their balances in full every month, the average debt is $9,333. [!]
.............................................................
Households with the lowest net worth (zero or negative) hold an average of $10,308 in credit card debt. [!]

Note added February 7: Though jobs are plentiful, the quality of the jobs seems to be declinging.  See figure.****
Since 1990, America has cumulatively added some 20 million low-quality jobs, versus around 12 million high-quality ones. In short, the US economy has shifted toward creating more bad jobs than good.****

(Click on figure to enlarge)

* https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-markets-9a1d5199-5f02-4934-9d9f-46789d902fbe.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/05/70percent-chance-of-recession-in-next-six-months-study-from-mit-and-state-street-finds.html
**https://www.cnbc.com/select/average-fico-score-hits-record-high-703/
*** https://www.cnbc.com/select/average-credit-card-balance-by-state/
https://www.businessinsider.com/average-credit-card-debt-in-every-state-ranked-2018-8
https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-credit-card-debt
**** https://qz.com/1752676/the-job-quality-index-is-the-economic-indicator-weve-been-missing/

SOYBEAN SOCIALISM,MANUFACTURING RECESSION, AND CONSUMER DEBT

So far, President Trump has paid Federal money totaling $28 billion to farmers because of impacts from his tariff war, largely on China.*
Yet he [President Trump] was quick to remind them [farmers] that he’s tried to salve their pain. “I sometimes see where these horrible dishonest reporters will say that ‘oh jeez, the farmers are upset.’ Well, they can’t be too upset, because I gave them $12 billion and I gave them $16 billion this year,” said Trump, who then added, “I hope you like me even better than you did in ’16.”
......................................................................
At $28 billion so far, the farm rescue is more than twice as expensive as the 2009 bailout of Detroit’s Big Three automakers, which cost taxpayers $12 billion [Actually the money was repaid**]. And farmers expect the money to keep flowing: In an August survey by Purdue University and the CME Group, 58% said they anticipate another round of trade aid next year.*

But what about manufacturing, an industry that is in a depression caused by some degree from the tariff war?  Admittedly the GM strike did not help but the decline is broader than that. 
U.S. industrial production plunged in October at the fastest rate in a year-and-a-half, further underscoring the nation’s manufacturing downturn at a precarious time in its ongoing trade negotiations with China.***

The decline was much worse than expected due to a six-week work stoppage at General Motors that likely cost the auto manufacturer $3 billion. But even if we control for the GM strike, America’s productive economy has been in a downward spiral for decades.***
.........................................................................
Overall, manufacturing production has declined in three of the last four months.***

Didn't President Trump say he would bring back manufacturing to the U.S.?***
From tax cuts to relaxed regulations to tariffs, each of President Trump’s economic initiatives is based on a promise: to set off a wave of investment and bring back jobs that the president says the United States has lost to foreign countries.***
...........................................................................
Researchers at A. T. Kearney said last month that Mr. Trump’s trade policies, including tariffs, had pushed factory activity not to the United States but to low-cost Asian countries other than China, like Vietnam.***

(Click on Figure to enlarge)

As seen in the figure, a decline in manufacturing began as far back as 2017.****
Among the G-20 countries—which represent approximately 74% of global gross domestic product—as of November 2019, around 70% have a PMI registering below 50, the benchmark for expansion. The ISM index treaded into contraction during four straight months in late 2019 in the United States as well as in Europe, which, after Canada and Mexico, is the largest regional market for the U.S. industrial sector. The European market remains compromised by weakness in German manufacturing.****

Though there seems to be a lot of optimism about the economy in 2020, CEOs do not share it****
I keep hearing that consumers are in great shape, but I don't know about that because consumer debt is at an all-time high (See Figure below***).

(Click on Figure to enlarge)

By the end of the third quarter, debt-laden Americans owed a staggering $13.95 trillion, according to the New York Federal Reserve Bank. That puts household debt $1.3 trillion higher than the 2008 peak.***

A lot of consumers are dipping into their 401Ks which is not recommended and that seems hazardous to me. (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/06/eightreasons401k.asp

* https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-19/farmers-say-trump-s-28-billion-bailout-isn-t-a-solution
** https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jan/22/barack-obama/obama-says-automakers-have-paid-back-all-loans-it-/
*** https://www.ccn.com/manufacturing-recession-puts-u-s-economy-on-track-for-worst-quarter-under-president-trump/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/business/economy/donald-trump-jobs-created.html
**** https://rsmus.com/what-we-do/industries/industrial-products/5-manufacturing-trends-to-watch-in-2020.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/02/ceos-still-consider-recession-to-be-the-biggest-business-risk-in-2020.html

ITEMS WITH THE MOST PAGE VIEWS AND MY FAVORITES - IX

Herein is my ninth annual summary of posts on my blog "Reunite Gondwanaland."  November made the 10th anniversary of the blog.  As of the end of 2019, the blog had over 114,000 page views and contains more than 1150 items of which 101 were published in 2019, compared to the all-time high of 202 in 2017.  The peak year for interest in the blog was 2017. Although there was a general decline in interest in the blog starting in 2018, several items entered the top ten of all time in 2019, (given below).  All the top posts for 2019 came before August and exceeded 100 page views.  The listings follow with all references given at the end of the section.

Much to my surprise, though the posted article with the most page views, all time, is very short (2 sentences) and titled simply "What Does This Mean?" (published August 28, 2012) with more than 980 page views, number two with 711 page views is "On How Much Is Spent On Entertainment" originally published on June 30, 2013.  The post originally got about 70 page views which is pretty good for me, but it was rediscovered in 2019 with a lot of activity, more than 600 page views.  Now dropping to #3 with 629 page views is titled "Teenager" an 8 line poem from January 05,2017.

(http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-does-this-mean.html).
(http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/06/on-how-much-is-spent-on-entertainment.html)
(http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/01/teenager.html).

Top page views with some page views in 2019 (greater than 500 page views):
“Break Even Price Of Fracking (547 page views), October 8, 2014
"Michael Flynn" (522), February 13, 2014
“Parallel Government” (508), July 3, 2017
“Pugnacious Politics” (503), July 4, 2017
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/10/break-even-price-of-fracking-oil.html
https://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/02/michael-flynn.html
https://pcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/07/parallel-government.html;
https://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/07/pugnacious-politics.html


Top page views with some page views in 2019 (greater than 400 page views):
Three more items have over 400 page views,
“Illegal Immigration” with 496
 “Infrastructure Program,” with 466 pageviews from November 23, 2016
new in 2019, “Parallels Between American And Israel Histories” (417), March 9, 2019).
https://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/02/illegal-immigration.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/11/infrastructure-program_23.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/03/parallels-between-american-and-israel.html

Top page views with some page views in 2019 (greater than 300 page views):
Three posts have over 300 page views:
“Detroit” (365) from October 26, 2016
new in 2019“Buying Politician’s Votes” (366), March 10, 2019
“Remarkable Wilma Rudolph - A Tribute" (337).
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/11/infrastructure-program_23.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/03/parallels-between-american-and-israel.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/10/detroit.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/03/buying-politiians-votes.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/08/remarkable-wilma-rudolph-tribute.html

Top pageviews of 2019 (greater than 200 page views):
None

Top page views with some page views in 2019 (greater than 100 page views):
General Zinni: Resigns As  Envoy (197)
Conservative And Liberal Straws (157)
Rod Rosenstein, Hero, Announces Coming Resignation (117)
Richest Zip Codes (114)
Let Them Eat Cake (113)

http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/01/gen-zinni-resigns-as-envoy.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/07/conservative-and-liberal-straws.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/05/rod-rosenstein-resigns-again.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/03/richest-zip-codes.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/01/let-them-eat-cake.html

My personal favorites are somewhat different.
I consider "Corporate Tax Cuts: Unintended Consequences" to be one of my best publications, but it got only 71 page views(http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/11/corporate-taxes-cuts-unintended.html).

It is right up there with" Effectiveness Of Taxes" posted way back in May of 2010 and is my personal favorite.  While this piece ultimately has received 131 page views, which is nice, it hardly competes in favorability with many others published since. (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/effectiveness-of-taxes.html)

I would also like to mention one additional poem, though it got only 19 page views "Upon the Second Anniversary Of Apollo 11," the first landing on the Moon [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/01/upon-second-anniversary-of-apollo-11.html]. Normally a couplet or more just pops into my mind and I construct a poem around it. The second anniversary of Apollo Eleven, however, was little noticed which I thought was terrible so this was the first time I sat down to compose a poem from scratch

I would also like to add two other poems, one called "Earthquake." (April 21, 2014) with 44 page views.  I like this because I feel I capture the power and emotion I was striving for in the poem.
and the other "Seagulls Of Myrtle Beach" (11-29-2009) with 25 page views.
https://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/04/earthquake-poem.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2009/11/seagulls-of-myrtle-beach.html

Also among poems, my favorite couplet that I have ever written is in  "So How About An Asteroid" (Poem) [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/07/so-how-about-asteroid-poem.html] (July 20,2011) with 89 page views:
Who could possibly be annoyed
About the study of an asteroid?

My favorite stanza is from  "On Age 82" (Poem)  (September 20, 2013 ) with 179 page views.[http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/09/on-age-82-poem.html]:
I do not text
And do not tweet
I'm 82 years old
Feeling kind of beat.

See the 2018 report for other items with more than 100 page views and additional information:(http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/01/items-with-most-page-views-and-my.html))

GRASPING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY

From the standpoint of the U.S., Gen Soleimani was a bad guy.  So a drone from the U.S. was sent to kill him and succeeded.  Little noticed was that another leader was also killed in the attack: Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.  Even less noticed was the failure to kill yet another militia leader:
The strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, a financier and key commander in Iran’s elite Quds Force who has been active in Yemen, did not result in his death, according to four U.S. officials familiar with the matter.*

The unsuccessful operation may indicate that the Trump administration’s killing of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani last week was part of a broader operation than previously explained, raising questions about whether the mission was designed to cripple the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or solely to prevent an imminent attack on Americans as originally stated.*

I have underlined a part of the passage above that I think is the real reason for the attack (i.e. crippling the leadership) rather than the phony explanation the Trump administration chose to pursue.  Had the administration chosen that approach, I think they might have been given a lot of credit.  After all, the repeated killing of al Qaida leaders has seriously weakened that organization.
Eighteen years after the 9/11 attacks, the al-Qaida organization that carried them out is a shell of its previous self. The global campaign against Osama bin Laden’s creation has achieved notable success. The ideas that inspired bin Laden and his followers have lost some, but not all, of their attractiveness. There is no place for complacency, but the threat is different.**
Why the administration chose the path they did is a mystery.

Instead of claiming that what they are doing is similar to what was done to al Qaida led to grasping defeat from the jaws of victory.  What they actually did was a good plan that they botched.  The killing of Gen. Soleimani was equivalent to the killing of Osama bin Laden.  The plan also included taking out of some of his lieutenants.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/on-the-day-us-forces-killed-soleimani-they-launched-another-secret-operation-targeting-a-senior-iranian-official-in-yemen/2020/01/10/60f86dbc-3245-11ea-898f-eb846b7e9feb_story.html
** https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/09/10/al-qaida-today-18-years-after-9-11/

UNITED STATES: POLICEMAN OF THE MIDDLE EAST

How did we become the policeman of the Middle East?  I think we volunteered for it, and it had something to do with oil.  We stay in the Middle East because we are doing nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan.  President Bush (Bush-43) started this nation-building even though he ran for president on an anti-nation building ticket.  So when we say some Iranian General is a bad hombre (for example) we should remember that is our viewpoint, not that of the Middle East or at least some of the Middle East.  To Shiite Muslims, and particularly Iran, they think Gen. Soleiman was a hero.  To the Shiites, we are a colonial power out to tell them how to live (I guess we call it "behave.").

Of course, it is more complicated than that because we originally entered the Middle East to oust the leader of Iraq who was a Sunni Muslim.  At the request of the Iraqi government, President Obama had us leave Iraq at which time a group of Sunnis ex-military people came into being called ISIS that vowed to destroy us.  It turns out that ISIS became a popular movement throughout SE Asian countries as well as Iraq.  So we spent a lot of lives and money to push ISIS out of Iraq.  Though it looks like we have succeeded in doing this with the help of Kurdish forces (Iran is anti-ISIS also), we are told that ISIS is hardly obliterated and is waiting to re-enter the fray.  but at the time of writing this, ISIS seems to be on the back burner.

Because Gen. Suleiman, who had a genius of enlisting militia paramilitary forces, even of Sunni Muslims as well as Shiite, was killed on Iraqi soil, there have been anti-American demonstrations in Iraq and the Shiite part of the Iraqi Parliament has voted that the U.S. should leave.  Though eastern Iraq is Shiite Muslim like Iran, they do not want to be taken over by Iran and, in fact, there are anti-Iran demonstrations as well.  We left once before during the Obama administration at the request of the Iraqi government and ISIS rose up so we had to go back in when the Iraqi military not only couldn't handle the ISIS forces but dropped their arms and fled.

Is the modern Iraq military any better?
Still, a great swathe of the Washington political establishment sees a full withdrawal from Iraq as an “invitation” for ISIS or an ISIS-like successor group to reemerge; the Iraqi army, they argue, is ill-equipped to handle the looming fundamentalist threat on its own. Likewise, foreign policy hawks worry that a U.S. withdrawal would leave Iraq to be absorbed into the Iranian sphere of influence; as the Atlantic Council puts it, withdrawal gives “Soleimani the kind of posthumous victory the Trump administration previously denied him when he was alive.*

As stated elsewhere, demonstrations in Iran were anti-government, but when Soleiman was killed the demonstrations turned against the U.S.
The antigovernment rallies that have defined the region in recent months were put on a back burner after a U.S. airstrike killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq last week. The attack, which also killed a top Iraqi paramilitary leader, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, drove millions of mourners into the streets of Iran in a show of national unity, displacing the antiregime protests that shook Iran in November and December, at least for now.**

Actually, the 5,000 troops we have in Iraq are only about 13% of the forces we have there.  For example, we have 13,000 troops in each of Kuwait and Qatar and 7,000 more in Bahrain.  I am able to confirm there are about 40,000 American troops in the Middle East and another approximately 14,000 in Afghanistan.***

* https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/explained-why-does-america-still-have-troops-iraq-111751
** https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-iran-tensions-have-set-back-middle-east-street-protests-11578675523
** https://www.axios.com/where-us-troops-deployed-middle-east-5e96fdb2-c7ba-4f26-90b4-7bf452f83847.html

WHAT DOES IRAN WANT?

The problem with Iran is that we never think of things from their point of view.  For example, we all think that Gen. Qasem Soleimani is a bad guy, but, to Iranians, he is a hero.  If we really want to "solve" the Iranian problem we must at least recognize what they want.

In passing, I should mention that our original fight in Iraq was with Al Qada, remember 9/!! an the destruction of the Manhatten Towers and the damage to the Pentagon with more than 2,000 people killed,

So what does Iran want?  I think there are at least three things.
(1) They want to push Isreal into the sea.  This we can't tolerate.  We were in at the founding of Israel and I agree we are committed to its success.*  So I don't know what we can do about this.
(2) They want the U.S. to get out of the Middle East.  This is where real conflict goes on.  We feel that if we apply enough economic sanctions that Iran will say "Uncle" and behave (from our viewpoint).  It doesn't seem to be effective.
(3) Maybe they would like to annex Eastern Iraq that is dominated by Shiites, the religion in Iran.  We are committed to the nation-building of Iraq starting in March of 2003 by President George Bush (Bush-43).  President Obama tried to pull our troops out of Iraq.  After all, we had been training Iraqi troops for many years, but the first time they were confronted by ISIS (composed of Sunni forces), the Iraq troops threw down their arms and ran.  That was really depressing.  Well we are committed to nation-building of Iraq so we have to oppose Iran and sent about 5,000 troops back in

There may be other things Iran would like, but I feel these are the main ones.

Going back to Gen. Soleimani, we recently assassinated him for reasons unclear.  It was claimed that Iran was within weeks or days of a major attack in which maybe 200 of our troops would die.  This seemed phony at the time and as time rolled on we were told that the attack was within days.  So we assassinated him.   What was our goal?  Did our politicians really think that Iran would give up if we did that?

What happened was that the people of Iran had been demonstrating against their government, and the assassination turned them toward demonstrating against us.  Some in our administration claimed that the demonstrations against us did not occur, but there is a photo of burning and burnt American flags.

Gen Soliemani's Deputy took over Soliemani's position.  We don't seem to know much about him.  He doesn't seem as charismatic as Soleimani, but it isn't wise to outshine your boss.  We will see.  Certainly, the Deputy knew of the plans for the supposed attack on U.S. forces (if indeed there was one).  In fact, Gen. Soleimani might have been the "front man" getting militias organized to attack our forces, and the Deputy may have been the one to actually do the planning.  We don't know.

At any rate, Iran did not carry out the plan but flew some rockets against two Iraqi airports where we had troops.  From what I have seen, the rockets did not do much damage beyond destroying some hangers (see figure).**  Some of the rockets didn't even go off.  It seems that many of the rockets missed the target, no doubt intended as the rockets were very precise that flew against the Saudi Arabian oil fields.  The troops had time to get into bunkers so we may not have had any casualties for our troops.  Iran for local consumption told their people that there was massive damage.  It sounds like our phantom message of imminent danger of an attack on our troops.

(Click on figure to enlarge)

Actually, there was an unsuccessful attack in Yemen on another leader of Quds Force (Abdul Reza Shahlai). where the U.S. tried unsuccessfully to kill a second major Iranian military figure.
The mission to kill Mr. Shahlai shows that the Trump administration was seeking to hit multiple officials from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which includes the Quds Force. Both organizations direct Iran’s proxy forces in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.***
The successful strike in Iraq and the unsuccessful attack in Yemen were meant to knock the Guards Corps back on its heels, and some senior military and intelligence officials believed a drastic strike against the group would effectively damage Iran’s ability to direct its proxy forces.***
But other officials, including intelligence officials, believed strikes against senior commanders were risky, and might have the effect of inciting the broader conflict the Trump administration said it was trying to avoid.***

I'm afraid that I feel the situation with Iran is hopeless and that we are involved in an endless war.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/03/buying-politiians-votes.html
** https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/jan/08/satellite-photos-reveal-extent-of-damage-from/
https://graphics.reuters.com/IRAQ-SECURITY/0100B4VR2Q5/index.html
*** https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/world/middleeast/trump-iran-yemen.html

CREDIT (Republished)

In 2019, some people discovered an old post of mine on How Much Is Spent On Entertainment.  The result was the post caught fire, by my standards, and is currently the item with the second-most page views (711) on this blog.

I wrote another piece on Credit, i.e. credit for doing something, and thought that those who appreciated the Entertainment piece, might like this one also.  So you can see it at:  http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/06/credit.html

IRANIAN-U.S. RELATIONS: THE LONG DOWNHILL SLIDE

I have written about the decline in Iranian-U.S. relations before in a piece called "Four Political Disasters" during my lifetime, of which overthrowing the democratically elected leader of Iran was the first.  The consequences of this are with us still.
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-four-political-disasters.html

To review:
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état (Persian: کودتا   ۸ مرداد ), was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on 19 August 1953,[5] orchestrated by the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project[6] or "Operation Ajax") and the United Kingdom (under the name "Operation Boot").[7][8][9][10] It was the first covert action of the United States to overthrow a foreign government during peacetime.[11]*

Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now part of BP) and to limit the company's control over Iranian oil reserves.[12] Upon the refusal of the AIOC to co-operate with the Iranian government, the parliament (Majlis) voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country.[13][14][15]

We can skip all the intermediate steps to disastrous relations down to today to the recent killing of  Gen. Qasem Soleimani aside from saying that a nuclear accord with Iran and many nations left things pretty calm in 2015.  We did this supposedly because of an imminent threat to American lives.  Unfortunately, our present government has no reputation for truth.  Our President said that the killing was defensive and meant to keep the peace.**  Even so, will killing Soleimani stop the threat?  Who knows, but the record is that this killing won't stop such attacks, indeed if they are planned, but will enhance them.  We keep doing these things expecting that they will change Iran's pattern of behavior, but they don't.  In fact, quite the opposite.  I guess our politicians just don't understand the Iranians, except that our current approach to Iran is similar to what we tried in Vietnam, and it didn't work there either.

In addition, there had been ongoing demonstrations by the people of Iran against their leadership and this killing has changed the demonstrations to anti-U.S. with trampling upon and burning of the U.S. flag. The effect in the short term is to unify Iranians against the U.S. ** Why shouldn't we have let the anti-government demonstrations continue?

A disturbing feature of all this is that President Trump claimed that President Obama planned to start a war with Iran in order to be re-elected president.***  So is President Trump's current plan to do just that?  If so, this killing is just the first of a series of events we will see of an increasing war with Iran.

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
** https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/04/politics/trump-iran-soleimani-strike-concerns/index.html
*** https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/03/before-qasem-soleimani-killing-trump-warned-of-iran-war-by-obama.html