We should all be wailing if he did escalate things when Iran clearly gave trump an off ramp- what Mark is saying, it makes no sense that trump wouldn't escalate things unless Putin said no.
I disagree with him... I think its more Netanyahu, MBS and MBZ- they were briefed on it, and now they none of the three want to touch that at all... Bibi said as much. I personally think that they are not ready just yet for war with Iran, it came too soon.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/08/iran-gulf-trump-allies-096382
Obama is not president, trump is. No one is pretending that "strange foreign policy decisions began with trump"- it's just strange that he would back down when 99/100 times, he doubles down.
Just because we are criticizing trump, doesn't mean we are defending Obama- not sure where you are picking that up from... Obama had huge glaring issues that I took umbrage with...