Gavin Newsom’s Cowardly Foreign Policy | The American Spectator

As the Trump administration bombs Iran at will, doing much to eliminate the threat to the world posed by the evil Islamic Republic’s terroristic military apparatus, Gavin Newsom has responded to the U.S.’s attack with simpering cowardice. He has issued an automatic denouncement of the war, describing it as “illegal” and “dangerous.” (RELATED: The Democrats’ Epic Fury Over Iran Strikes)

He gave no thought to the decades of terror and violence that have issued from Tehran, or to the murderous regime’s absolute dedication to developing nuclear weapons and even intercontinental ballistic missiles, no matter the devastating sanctions that mission put on Iran’s people. He also spared no thought to the operation’s immediate success, including the ease with which the U.S. and Israel have gained air superiority over Iran, the 40 Iranian officials wiped out in a single act, and the extent to which the Iranian military has been extraordinarily damaged after just a few days of bombing. (RELATED: Ten Thoughts on Operation Epic Fury and Its Aftermath)

Instead of, as a leading presidential candidate should do, considering the merits of the U.S.’s action to help the Iranian people (who just had 36,000 of their own slaughtered by the regime), contemplating how weakening Tehran could do much to promote freedom in the Middle East, and examining what actions are in the best interest of the security and prosperity of the United States, Newsom quickly settled on Trump did it, so it’s bad. (RELATED: The Women Who Would Not Kneel)

Newsom gave only a cursory comment that the Iranian regime is no good: “The corrupt and repressive Iranian regime must never have nuclear weapons. The leadership of Iran must go.”

But he quickly gave a strong caveat: “But that does not justify the President of the United States engaging in an illegal, dangerous war that will risk the lives of our American service members and our friends without justification to the American people.”

Juvenile, simplistic, and unprincipled: The war is bad because it is dangerous.

Apparently, in Newsom’s mind, the facts that U.S. soldiers have been put at risk and the war is on the other side of the world prohibit him from taking even a few days to consider whether the war against Iran is a good idea. He believes that the Iranian regime should not have nuclear weapons, and yet he does not stop to think that, even facing the full brunt of the U.S. military buildup and extremely intensive sanctions, Iranian negotiators were willing to sacrifice nothing for their leaders’ rabid dedication to building a nuclear weapon.

“Four service members died today, and Donald Trump spent more time talking about his ballroom than he did the loss of those lives,” Newsom said.

Newsom’s press office also tweeted, “TURNS OUT, TRUMP WILL SEND OUR SONS TO WAR.”

Newsom sounds like those most ideological of isolationists who believe there is no reasonable use of the United States military if it puts the life of a single American soldier at risk. Of course, a great power in a dangerous world cannot possibly function under this apparatus of absolute fear. It may as well abandon its military, which only exists to make a hollow gesture. If Newsom brings this mindset into the White House, it will be time for America’s enemies to run wild over the world doing whatever they will.

With America waging war on Iran, Newsom has turned to complaining about its impact on gas prices. This is quite rich, given that, directly due to Newsom’s own policies, gas is around $2 more expensive in California than nationally.

“Look at your cost at the pump the last few days: That was an act of the Trump administration,” Newsom told reporters on Monday.

If Newsom wants to jump on Democrats’ new focus on affordability, he’s going to have a problem. California ranks last in the nation for cost of living and housing affordability. That means it ranks worse than even Hawaii, tourism-focused tropical islands thousands of miles from the mainland. And this is, of course, after seven years of his leadership as governor, eight years of him as lieutenant governor, and another eight years of him as mayor of San Francisco.

But, according to Newsom, California is the shining beacon of affordability, and Trump’s strikes against Iran are the real problem here. Trump’s strikes, Newsom said, are “making the affordability crisis worse for you as we cut taxes for billionaires, cut behavioral health funding, cut health care funding, cut food stamps, to fund a war that no one wants that was never approved by Congress.”

Newsom, who has been attempting to strengthen his foreign policy chops this year through appearances at the Munich Security Conference and the World Economic Forum, has settled into simply catastrophizing about the war.

“It is now a proxy war,” he said, and “we have the prospect of a regional war.”

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