18.02.2017 Author: Jean Perier
Column: Politics Region: USA in the World
The resignation of President Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has been widely discussed by pretty much all the US and international media sources. Although this matter is a purely internal US affair, the widespread interest towards this event can be attributed to the fact that it serves as an indication of the growing internal feud within the White House. The political forces in Washington are fighting to determine who is going to be able to control the United States: the newly elected president or the likes of Obama, Soros and the neocon crowd that have been undeclared masters of today’s US political agenda.
It’s curious that in the matter of hours Michael Flynn went from a person who enjoys Trump’s “complete confidence” to being the first major casualty in the undeclared political war. Flynn’s resignation came after a tumultuous few days of revelations about his alleged ties to Russia and his role in attempting to ease sanctions that were put in place weeks before the Trump administration took office.
Let’s not forget that a retired army lieutenant general, Michael Flynn headed the Defense Intelligence Agency until the day when the Obama administration decided to make off with him back in 2014. In 2015, he began supporting Trump’s primary campaign, and was a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention last summer, when he led the crowd demanding to lock Hillary up. It’s noteworthy that Flynn, like Trump, has advocated a closer relationship with Russia as an ally in the fight against Islamic terrorism.
The Huffington Post would note that:
As recently as a few hours before the resignation was announced, White House counsel Kellyanne Conway had said that Flynn enjoyed the “full confidence of the president.” That, clearly, turned out not to be true.
According to The Intercept, Michael Flynn has accumulated a lot of enemies throughout the intelligence and defense community. Which, of course, can also be said about Donald Trump, since just the other week Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer warned Trump that he was being “really dumb” to criticize the intelligence community because “they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
The active bashing of both Trump and Flynn has been supported by such media sources as The New York Times, The Washington Post and several other, the sources that are controlled by the Democratic party and their champion – George Soros. It’s not wonder that the 45th US President accused them of pushing ‘fake news’ and have virtually declared a war on them.
As a result, Michael Flynn found himself in the position of the accused, notes Le Figaro, emphasizing some questionable traits of Trump’s character by stating that the man who changed three campaign manager in 18 months is known for his inability to tolerate “losers” or those who found themselves in a tricky position. While the investigation against Flynn was still picking pace, not a single word of support came from the mouth of Donald Trump. In addition, anonymous sources of Le Figaro report that the National Security Council has come to a standstill recently, which made the White House pretty frustrated with the former general.
Trump’s presidency is going to be riddled with internal strife, says Süddeutsche Zeitung. This newspaper is convinced that Trump himself fails to deliver, which leads to his closest advisers discussing unpleasant and confidential facts on various talk shows. This German source is convinced that superpowers can not be run as if it they were a supermarket.
Yet, we must not forget in spite of all the mistakes that Flynn made, he was one of the few sensible men who played the role of a buffer between Trump and his “Armageddon riders” – such as Steve Bannon.
American intelligence agencies have declared a sort of war on Trump, notes the Stern magazine. There has never been a president in American history who had less confidence in its own special services, as an ever increasing number of publications about Donald Trump shows. A former NSA employee John Schindler wrote in the British Observer that from now on US intelligence agencies are deliberately hiding facts from the US government because they do not trust the White House team.
The Washington Free Beacon is convinced that Obama’s associates were behind the campaign aimed at bringing Flynn down, since they feared that he would be inclined to publish all the unpleasant details of the Iran nuclear deal.
Judging by the speed with which Donald Trump handed Michael Flynn, the behind-the-scenes forces are more that capable to apply pressure on the new US administration. Last week Stephen Miller, a political adviser and Trump’s speech writer, was sent out to brief American TV channels where he failed to provide a single encouraging remark for the former National Security Adviser, noting that he’s unable to tell what is happening in Trump’s head.
So it is more than likely that the “surrender of Flynn” will be followed by other steps that would show that Donald Trump is unable to walk the walk, especially after the macho bravado he’s been known for during his election campaign. At the very least, this is evidenced by the sudden change in his rhetorics on China …
Jean Périer is an independent researcher and analyst and a renowned expert on the Near and Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
http://journal-neo.org/2017/02/18/michael-flynn-first-causality-of-the-political-war-in-washington/