Five whoppers John McGuire has told about Iran

Sure, they're just Trump talking points, but that's no reason to ignore them.

“Of course he said that, he’s just a Trump lackey.” I hear this said about John McGuire a lot, and though it may be true, it’s a copout. Yes, he meets our low expectations by saying the banal, illogical, and ignorant things we’ve learned to expect from him. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore them. I refuse to believe that the only time to call a politician out is when he says something that is unexpectedly banal, illogical, and ignorant.

So here’s a roundup of five whoopers McGuire has told about Iran so far. It’s an impressive tally, considering it’s only been a week.

This isn’t a war.

McGuire: “President Trump’s actions do not constitute a war with Iran, rather he is carrying out a swift and targeted military action to take out a threat to our nation and the world.” Twitter, March 5.

This one’s so dumb, it’s barely worth responding to. But such is life with John McGuire. In his Feb. 28 launch announcement, Trump said, “The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war.” On March 2, he said he expected the operation to last “four weeks or less” and referred repeatedly to “the war front.” The next day, Trump said, “We’re doing very well on the war front, to put it mildly.” It’s a goddamn war.

Iran insisted on its right to pursue nukes.

McGuire: In negotiations with Iran, “All we say is, it’s a red line. You cannot have a nuclear weapon. All they did is push back.” Fox News, March 5.

Hmm. Here’s the first paragraph of the JCPOA, which Iran signed in 2015: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.” That’s the same JCPOA that Trump ripped up during his first term.

As for whether they kept their word, here’s Trump’s chief intelligence officer just last year: “The intelligence community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”

It’s not even true that they refused to eschew nukes during the most recent negotiations. Iran’s president did it on February 26, two days before Trump attacked: “When the religious leader explicitly states that we will not pursue nuclear weapons, this is a position rooted in theological and jurisprudential beliefs, not a political tactic that can be changed.”

Iran was on the verge of having nuclear weapons.

McGuire: “They still have over 900 pounds of refined uranium, and that’s enough to build 10 bombs.” Washington Watch with Tony Perkins, March 2.

Factually true but highly misleading. McGuire is conflating a bunch of separate issues here: whether the uranium they have can be used to make a bomb now (it can’t, though it wouldn’t take long to do), whether they were still trying to make a bomb at all (Trump’s own intelligence chief said they weren’t), and whether they had a missile capable of reaching the United States (they didn’t).

The uranium in question is enriched to 60 percent purity, not the 90 percent you need to make a weapon. Last May, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that it would take Iran “probably less than one week” to produce enough weapons-grade uranium to make its first bomb, but there’s no evidence that it was trying to do so. As Tulsi Gabbard, the head of national intelligence, told Congress a year ago, “The intelligence community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.” (Never mind that Trump claimed to have obliterated their nuclear program in last summer’s attacks.)

And, according to America’s own intelligence agencies, even if Iran did restart the program, it wouldn’t be able to make a nuclear warhead capable of reaching the United States until 2035.

Critics of the war are undermining morale.

McGuire: “Imagine you’re down range, you’re next to your brothers, you don’t know whether they’re going to make it, and you’ve got politicians back home trashing what you’re doing. That just destroys morale.” Fox News, March 5.

If it’s true of critics now, it was also true of people like the rotten SOB who said stuff like this:

“In war, you’re going to have casualties. That happens.”

“The war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq.”

“We made a terrible mistake getting involved in Afghanistan in the first place. It's a mess, it's a mess and at this point we probably have to [leave U.S. troops there] because that thing will collapse in about two seconds after they leave."

“You know, they're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, 'Oh, gee, let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.’ ”

“Does the USA want to be the Policeman of the Middle East, getting NOTHING but spending precious lives and trillions of dollars protecting others who, in almost all cases, do not appreciate what we are doing?”

Trump consulted Congress.

McGuire: “They went through the Gang of Eight. They're doing things right.” Interview on local TV, March 2.

The best you can say is that Trump informed Congress. Consulted, not so much. Mark Warner, who unlike McGuire is an actual member of the Gang of Eight (an octet of congressional leaders who get classified briefings on military operations): “By the president's own words, ‘American heroes may be lost.’ That alone should have demanded the highest level of scrutiny, deliberation and accountability, yet the president moved forward without seeking congressional authorization.”

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Early voting has started for the April 21 referendum that would let the General Assembly redraw the congressional map if another state does it first. You can apply for a mail-in ballot, register, check your status, and find your polling place here.

McGuire, who’d almost certainly be booted from his seat if the map changes, challenged the ballot’s wording in court. The Virginia Supreme Court is allowing the election to proceed while it weighs legal questions about the redistricting.