'Possible war in the Middle East': Editor explains why Trump's visa attack on Iran is 'lame' response to oil field bombing
As the United States is searching for ways to draw down on decades-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, serious conflicts might be afoot, one Daily Beast reporter told MSNBC Sunday.
World News editor Christopher Dickey told host Kendis Gibson he doesn't understand the point of barring Iranian diplomats from being able to come to the United Nations General Assembly meeting this fall. During a "Meet the Press" interview Sunday morning, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said that the U.S. should deny the visas. The statement prompted Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to call her out for "warmongering," and said she was out of touch with Americans who don't want to get into another costly Middle East war.
“The Iraq War, President Trump has said, was the biggest geopolitical blunder of the last generation,” Paul told CNN's Jake Tapper. “It destabilized the Middle East and increased the strength of Iran and tipped the balance toward Iran, so really there was nothing good about the Iraq war and Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney and John Bolton still don’t get it. They are still advocating for more regime change in the Middle East.”
"I don’t think people really understand how dangerous the situation is right now," Dickey said of the massive fire caused by a terrorist attack at the world's largest oil refinery in Saudi Arabia. "We are looking at a possible war in the Middle East that will hugely interrupt global energy supplies."
"Once people understand that there are drones flying around the region of the Persian Gulf, where so much oil is produced, that can take out the biggest single refinery in the world, which is what we just saw happen, as well as the Saudi oil field, then the whole discussion about closing the Straits of Hormuz, all of that becomes kind of irrelevant."
He explained that if terrorist groups can take out refineries and oil fields across the Middle East it could bring on a global oil crisis. He noted that there was no reason to attack tanker ships in the Persian Gulf or take tanker ships hostage if they can simply destroy the industry using nothing more than a drone.
Luckily, for the United States, President Barack Obama helped set the U.S. on a path of energy independence, so any Middle East war would not hit the United States as hard as it would other countries.
"It’s true that the United States is in a better position on energy thanks to the Obama Administration than it has ever been before," Dickey continued. "And the oil prices when they go up, that’s going to mean more fracking in the United States, more production in the United States, because it’s expensive."
The problem for Americans is that their leader is lost when trying to figure out how to solve any energy problems.
"I don’t think President Trump has the slightest clue what to do," Dickey said. "So, when we come back to the question of stopping visas for Iranian diplomats and Iranian president, that’s just another really lame measure when you just don’t know what to do."
Watch below: