Diplomatic cables show Iran war is damaging US on multiple fronts across the world

The documents show the fallout for the US in Bahrain, Indonesia and Azerbaijan as it struggles to catch up with pro-Iran messaging.

The Iran war is risking America’s global security ties and damaging its reputation, especially among the world’s Muslims, according to a set of State Department cables obtained by POLITICO.

The cables, dated Wednesday, described the fallout of the war for America’s standing in three countries in different parts of the world: Bahrain, Azerbaijan and Indonesia.

U.S. diplomats at embassies in the countries’ capitals painted damning portraits of an America under siege in multiple media spheres by pro-Iranian actors that are exceptionally agile in the digital space.

Apart from all the obvious US policy failures, there are also the less obvious ones.

The current admin has no understanding of soft power. The US spent decades building trust in the Voice of America. Sure, it was US propaganda in some ways, but it was often much more truthful about the facts than the local government news. The people who worked at VoA cared about being reporters and wanted to tell the truth. They had bureaus around the world broadcasting in local languages, and it cost almost nothing. It was old fashioned radio, a technology that's a century old. Something that might have been useful in Iran where the Internet has been cut off for months now. So, Iran can now get their narrative out to all the other countries nearby, and the US has no way of correcting / countering the Iranian propaganda.

The US also used to know the value of diplomats. The Trump admin doesn't think expertise matters. So, the Iran deals are being conducted by the President's son in law, and a buddy of Trump's who's also a real estate developer. Unsurprisingly, they're not succeeding. Ambassadors have always been a cushy job, often given to big donors or friends. But, Trump has made it so entire embassies are effectively useless.

The kinds of damage being done in just a couple of years will last for decades. I don't know if the US will ever recover from this. Many of the problems probably won't even show up for more than 5 years. Instead of a US military base in a foreign country having a lease that's easy to renew, the next time it comes up there will be pushback or refusals.

The US dominated world sucked in a lot of ways, but at least it was stable. My guess is that the next few decades will be a lot less stable. Maybe the end result will be better. I'd love it if Europe stepped into the vacuum left by the US. They're doing a lot of good things when it comes to environmental laws, privacy, anti-monopoly, etc. If it's China that steps forward, I'm less confident it will be an improvement on the US. Other than those two, I don't really see any other country or bloc of countries that could try to do the necessary work.

IMO, this is what the goal was. Instability and loss of power. This was a coup, and many if not most of its goals were met.

A coup by whom? Nobody is benefiting from it.

The rich.

ETA

I'm sorry, I totally didn't supply enough context. I meant all of the shit that America is doing right now.

The United States has been taken over in a bloodless coup and the rich are benefiting.

Are they though? Stocks are up at the moment, and Trump tends to chicken out of policies that hurt the stock market numbers. But, in the long term a lot of this chaos will probably hurt rich people. For example, the best students are now choosing not to study at schools in the US because of the ICE crackdowns, when they graduate they're much less likely to work for an American company. And then there's the long-term economic damage due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. That will probably result in years of higher prices and inflation that will hurt businesses.

Rich people tend to mostly like stability. It allows them to make long-term investments knowing that the rules won't change before those investments pay off. Trump's administration is anything but stable. Backing off of terrible policies when the markets react isn't as good as not risking those stupid policies in the first place.

Yes, they're getting some temporary wins, because Trump has gutted parts of the government that oversee or enforce rules. But, if I were a rich person I'd be very worried about the long-term damage he's doing.