Foreign desk: Iran Faces Fallout From Snubbing Trump
For all the commotion it’s stirring, Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky notes that President Trump’s latest Twitter all-caps threat to Iran is “an almost verbatim” rehash of his warning a year ago that North Korea would face fire and fury “the likes of which this world has never seen before.” It’s “about as serious this time around,” but with decidedly more bad blood. Iran, unlike North Korea, has no nuclear weapons and “there’s no way it can hold off the US conventional military might.” But Tehran makes Trump madder than Kim Jong Un because it refuses “to play along with him.” Its leaders have been adamant about not wanting to talk to Trump, which may have been a mistake on their part. There may be a “heads-on confrontation” coming, but it’s likely to be economic.
From the left: Dems Entirely Too Focused on Abortion
If you listen to Democrats and progressives, you’d think abortion is the only issue with which the US Supreme Court ever contends. But Michael Wear, who headed faith outreach for Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, wonders in the Los Angeles Times whether this “singular focus” actually will help the party. Before 2016, Democrats viewed abortion as “a tragic choice that nonetheless should remain legal.” But with Hillary Clinton’s nomination, “the architects of the modern pro-choice movement wanted more.” What they got was an aggressive new strategy that may actually have “set back women’s rights to choose.” So as the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation begins, Wear cautions that the nation should hear “from a party that is interested in more than just the fate of Roe v. Wade.”
Conservative take: Trump Still Insecure About ’16 Result
Why does President Trump refuse to publicly criticize Vladimir Putin, asks Timothy Carney at the Washington Examiner. The two most prevalent answers are that a) he’s “unduly fond of oppressive strongmen, and b) he can’t distinguish between the investigation into possible collusion and whatever Russia actually did. But Carney suggests “a deeper issue”: Trump is “terrified that indictments of Russians take credit away from his election win.” This explains his firing of Steve Bannon amid stories he “was really the mastermind of Trump’s win” and of FBI Director James Comey after he testified on TV that “we might have had some impact on the election.” Now Trump apparently believes investigators are trying to prove he “had foreign help” — that he “couldn’t win on his own.”
Political scribe: Russia Will Help the Democrats Next
Despite warnings that Russian election meddling continues, there’s been precious little action by Washington against the cyber threat, complains Garrett Graf at Politico. He’s especially concerned by what he sees as GOP complacency, because “there’s solid geopolitical evidence that boosting the Democrats would be a smart strategy for a foreign actor this fall.” Vladimir Putin’s goal, he notes, “isn’t — and never was — to boost the Republican Party.” It was to weaken the West by exploiting “the seams and divisions” in our democracy and thus “undermine our legitimacy and moral standing.” And it seems to have paid off as Trump has attacked America’s western European allies. Moreover, “the next attack may not even stem from Russia.” Indeed, “there’s no guarantee that today’s allies are tomorrow’s allies.”
Culture critic: Why Saudi Women Want Muscle Cars
As of June 24, it’s legal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia. But Helen Raleigh at The Federalist notes that the kingdom’s car dealers completely misjudged their new customers: They stocked their showrooms with “ ‘cute’ vehicles they thought would attract female buyers,” i.e., “smaller cars with small engines.” Turns out, though, that Saudi women “want big cars with high horsepower and loud speakers.” Raleigh, an immigrant from China, think she knows why: She too faced limited transportation choices in her native country and cars that were “just steel boxes on wheels.” So when “suddenly I was set free, I wanted to make a bold statement to let the world know . . . I was free and in full control of my own destiny.” Plus, she adds, “only in the land of the free can muscle cars be built.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann