In the dark comedy “Wag the Dog,” the U.S. president lands in the middle of a scandal two weeks before reelection.
In need of creating a diversion, presidential adviser Winifred Ames (played by Anne Heche) hires experienced political spin doctor Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro), who approaches Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) to help him fabricate a war in Albania. The media are soon completely focused on the war, and the president’s problems start to fade.
I remember thinking the film was quite surreal. It debuted Christmas Day 1997, and it was in theaters in March when Yugoslavia was falling apart and the Kosovo Liberation Army of the Albanian minority started a war on March 6, 1998. About a year later, the U.S. bombed Yugoslavia as the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal and its consequences were leading to impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. Thanks to the war, Clinton’s political problems disappeared from the headlines.
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The problem of Syria
On April 6, 2017, the alt-right website Breitbart News (of Steve Bannon fame) carried a headline quoting a former conservative Republican congressman: “Ron Paul: ‘Zero Chance’ Assad Behind Syria Chemical Weapons Attack.” Generally, Breitbart is highly supportive of President Trump, but the crux of the story is that if the Syrian Army and the Russians have turned the tide in the Syrian civil war and are making progress against ISIS without chemical weapons, it makes no sense to use them at this stage in the war.
While I find it hard to believe that the U.S. would have anything to do with staging a false flag attack in Syria, I think it is entirely plausible to think that local warring parties who are being squeezed by the Russians, Shiite militias and the Syrian army are big enough monsters to do just that. Given that there is evidence of them staging similar attacks in 2013, a detailed investigation would have been the more prudent choice.
Even the “moderate opposition” is suspect. After taking Aleppo, the Russian military found mass graves with heads and limbs missing, which may have been due to this moderate opposition. Suffice to say the term “moderate opposition” in such circumstances has become a rather obvious oxymoron.
Almost one year later, we saw news that the Syrians have again seemingly used chemical weapons in a military situation in land that they control with ISIS on the run. It is so obvious that Syria did this that it would make zero sense for them to use chemical weapons in such a situation. In previous situations, there has been proof that chemical weapons attacks have been caused by others but staged so that they can be blamed on the Syrian government. The only explanation is that whoever staged them at the time wanted to draw a particular response from powers outside the region, namely the U.S. government.
We will never know all the facts, but isn’t it peculiar that just after President Trump mentioned pulling out of Syria last week, this chemical attack happened? Could it be that someone does not want the U.S. to pull out?
I absolutely agree with Trump’s repeated points that too many American lives and too much money have been spent in the Middle East since 2001 without a lot of results. While I fully supported intervening in a failed country like Afghanistan in 2001 to get the Taliban out and chase Osama bin Laden out of hiding, the fabricated weapons of mass destruction evidence in the case of Iraq was the low point of the Bush administration.
Implications for stocks and bonds
I am worried that a military attack on the Syrian forces will provoke a military response by the Russians and all hell will break loose. In such a scenario, the February lows in the stock market may not hold (see chart). This is all happening amid escalating trade tensions with China and the FBI raiding Trump’s personal lawyer’s office, which is not something that happens every day due to the severe limitations imposed by attorney-client privilege. Attorney-client privilege does have limitations, which the Department of Justice clearly thinks apply in this case. All senior DOJ officials who signed off on the search warrant are Republican appointees.
I find it most interesting that on this last leg lower in the stock market, which started with Chinese trade tensions, the Treasury market has been rallying, which is very different than the selloff in Treasuries we saw in February, at the start of the first leg in the selloff. This has caused massive yield curve flattening and a new low for the two- and 10-year Treasury spread (below 50 basis points) for this economic cycle. That means investors are worried about the economy (see chart).
I happen to think that if Trump pulls out of Syria, denuclearizes the Korean Peninsula and rebalances the U.S. trade imbalance with China, he will be regarded as great a president as Ronald Reagan. Although I do not like his behavior toward adult-film actresses and models, I will say to Republican party supporters who have been eerily silent about this that it will have been worth it if he could accomplish all the above.
But it seems to me that someone really does not want him to succeed.
Ivan Martchev is an investment strategist with institutional money manager Navellier and Associates. The opinions expressed are his own.
Source : MTV
