Are Bolton, Cohen setting up US for a coup d'etat, with military action against Iran on the side?

By Emanuel Pastreich

The Trump experiment in crisis as governance has at last reached the denouement that we have long anticipated with curiosity and apprehension. But now that the mansions of the government are collapsing into rubble all around us, there is an eerie silence among most educated Americans about what will happen next.

Donald Trump's comments as reported in the frenzied media have reached such an extreme that one would be right to wonder whether he requires hospitalization for neurosis, or worse. His comments range daily from the comic to the deranged.

Or do they?

Increasingly the statements attributed to Donald Trump by the media have become so extreme, so ludicrous, as to suggest that they are being made up by a third party, and do not come from Trump himself. That is to say that the presentation of Trump as a crazy man could be the ultimate statue of liberty play that allows certain forces to make an end run around the constitution and the educated classes of the United States to achieve nefarious goals.

Just look at the recent freak show. Trump is threatening to impose tariffs on Mexico in response to immigration and on India for its trade practices even as Trump tries to present India as an ally.

Granted, Trump has made many strange comments before. Yet these recent incidents are so sensationalist, so absurd, and so counter to Trump's own interests as to raise doubts as to whether the comments are being fed to us by someone who wants to take Trump down, not because Trump is guilty of impeachable crimes, but because Trump's actions help fill the newspapers with fluff and distract people from the increasing blackout of information in the media over the last six months.

And then we find, all of a sudden, Republicans who are starting to ask whether Trump could be impeached, starting with Michigan representative Justin Amash. It could be that Republicans are coming to their senses about this insane presidency, but such an interpretation seems rather doubtful. Republicans have shown a military discipline so far and refuse to make a real break of ranks.

Then we saw Barack Obama in Canada remarking, "I believe the long-term trajectory of humanity is in a positive direction, but you get dark ages before the Renaissance." Obama did not refer to any of the criminal actions of Trump, but rather made the rather disturbing suggestion that these "dark ages" would suddenly end.

It does not take much imagination to see that he was hinting at some sort of unexpected change of regime.

Similarly, Robert De Niro launched into a "F*** Trump" tirade at the American Icon Awards that was blood curdling. Addressing a crowd of wealthy Hollywood players who are all deep in bed with investment banks and multinational corporations, De Niro did not condemn the breakdown of the rule of law in the United States, or talk about the corruption surrounding Donald Trump. Rather his comments were a clear appeal to the base emotions, to instinctive disgust with Trump. It felt almost as he is was showing contempt for "white trash" as much as about any particular action Trump had taken.

De Niro's comments were quickly blasted around the internet and swallowed whole by the preconditioned Trump haters everywhere, left and right.

The most disturbing of all the recent developments in this "operation impeach the clown" was Eliot Cohen's article in the Atlantic "A Stain on the Honor of the Navy." The article dwells on a horrific slight to deceased American war hero John McCain that was supposedly ordered by navy officers in response to pressure from the White House.

The story goes that the Navy acquiesced to demands that the name of the USS John S. McCain be covered over when Donald Trump visited the Yokosuka Naval Base so he would not have to see it. Any number of descriptions of this event clutter the internet now.

Cohen took a harsh and unforgiving tone in his article. The article was significantly reposted on the site Defense One, making it look rather like an appeal to officers throughout the military to take offense at this unforgivable act by the president.

Interestingly, the same article was also posted in many progressive blogs, assumed to be just more evidence of how foolish Trump is.

There was nothing progressive, or even analytic and rational, about this article.

The author Eliot Cohen is a close friend of John Bolton and a central figure in the drive for war with Iran. Cohen served as the architect for the neo-conservative "Project for the New American Century" that mapped out how the United States would be sucked into an unending war in defense of its national interests and try to occupy the entire Middle East.

Cohen was also a critical planner for the drive to invade Iraq over the broad objections of most citizens and many in the military.

Cohen has been baying for a war with Iran ever since.

Cohen's article does not suggest that the covering up of the name of John McCain was illegal. He makes the abstract issue of honor central to this story of an unspeakable insult.

The article attacks the military officers who supposedly followed the orders from the White House, as cowards, who are unlike "a Farragut or a Nimitz" and, in their weakness, fawn on the president.

Cohen is saying that the military must resist such corrupt politicians at all cost.

He notes, "When large elements of the chain of command yield to illegitimate and morally corrupt demands of this kind, there is reason to fear veins of rottenness in the whole structure."

Of course the corruption is all quite real, but the obsession with Trump's unwillingness to see the name of John McCain suggests that the military must defy the president not because of the interests of the nation, but rather because, "there is nothing more perilous than an armed force without honor."

It is not much of a leap to interpret the article as a suggestion that the military would be entirely justified in launching a coup d'etat against Trump in the interests of honor if he continues these affronts.

The logic is quite similar to that used by military factions in Japan who rallied against the corrupt politicians for the cause of honor in the 1930s, attempting multiple coups, most significantly the assassination of then prime minister Inukai Tsuyoshi. In the Japanese case, the rallying of military officers in the cause of honor, and against corruption, led to the end of civilian control over the military.

Cohen's whole argument is focused on this insult to Yokosuka. But did it actually happen? The photographs circulated in some media (but not confirmed by anyone who was at the event) show navy officers wearing a patch on their sleeves with a likeness to Trump embroidered with the words, "Make Aircrew Great Again." Although it is possible that such a group actually was there, the photographs look more like fake news.

Fake news aimed at setting Trump up as a corrupt and selfish pig, at stirring up emotions without any concern for the structural, economic and ideological factors that may underlie Trump's rise, serves a very real purpose.

The stage has been set for a complete breakdown of the institutions meant to address corruption, malfeasance and incompetence in the political system. That is in part an inevitable result of long-term shifts, but could someone have his fat thumb on the scale?

First the media presented the public with an independent counsel that would find grounds for impeachment, primarily on the assumption that the Russian government (out of all governments) interfered with the 2016 election. The media encouraged people to believe that this bureaucratic process, as opposed to rising up in the streets, would bring down the corruption of Trump.

The report compiled by special counsel Robert Meuller did not prove anything about the Russian role, but it contained more than enough material to impeach three or four presidents. Yet, pathetically, Meuller could only make the statement, "If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so."

The message was clear. This special counsel was left with no authority to do much of anything. He had taken down many of Trump's closest allies, but Trump was left standing right where he had been, and acting even more outrageously than ever.

But is Trump still there because he is such a political genius, or so powerful? Or is this entire process a means of creating a bogey man president who is held up for public contempt but who has been cut off from his own personal networks and therefore can be manipulated at will?

The problem is not Trump. Rather it is the shift of the decision-making process in Washington DC away from the White House, away from Congress and into the sprawling bureaucracy that forms the muscles of the executive branch, linked by sinews to military and intelligence subcontractors that slouch out towards Dulles Airport. This executive is expanding by draining nutrients from its host. It is accountable to no one.

This has been true for some time, but we are finally reaching the final stage of metastasis.

So now we are being fed articles filled with titillating comments about how Congress will start taking steps toward impeachment.

If you liked the Mueller Report, you are going to love Congress's pathetic effort to take down Trump. Most congressmen, even the most "progressive," are completely silent about most of his crimes, and many of them are in Trump's league in terms of corruption.

But could it be that the main purpose of the debate on impeachment is to show citizens that Congress is incapable of doing anything about this criminal and buffoon who lacks "honor?"

What would be the point of attacking Trump for his lack of "honor" while making sure that neither the Justice Department nor the Congress can address the crisis?

The obvious answer is that the stage is being carefully engineered so that we will be "begging for a coup," to quote historian Kevin Baker.

Perhaps we are observing something like a hornet hatching out of its cocoon. The lean and mean new creature formed by the convergence of global finance, military contracting and corrupt politicians is now mature and able to slough off congress, and for that matter the White House and its laughable president.

All these fun and games are taking place during an apocalyptic struggle by Cohen, Bolton, and various invisible two-star generals who follow them, to launch a military attack on Iran that may end life on Earth as we know it, but that will allow them to establish the military rule and rapidly convert the United States to a military economy.

We could say it is a move akin to the manner in which the military took over Egypt in 2013 by creating a chaotic environment and presenting the military as the only meaningful alternative to disaster.

If enough people can be brought on board for a coup attempt against Trump, even if it is not entirely successful, Bolton thinks he could get the support of a large chunk of the military in the process that will allow him to force through his war on Iran.

There are those who would like to get rid of Bolton (Trump at this point does not have much of a role in that process). But Bolton and Cohen are scheming that they can distract the people long enough with the comical tale of a fumbling Trump that they will find an opportunity to seize the initiative and push the United States into war with Iran and make military politics and a military economy the only game in town.