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The comparison to what is about to happen to the country is not Clinton's impeachment but Iran-Contra. At core, this appears to be a cooked-up foreign policy scheme that did not get run through channels, had the president's support, and broke the law. 1/x
My book covers Iran-Contra, but I've learned two things in writing and promoting it: 1) everyone remembers Iran-Contra but no one understands it, and 2) no one understands how bad and how close to real reckoning that caused in the #natsec business. 2/x
Because the Ukraine issue is about national security, getting to the bottom of it all will cross a lot of the lines--chains of command, classification, etc.-- that Americans don't really understand and are built not to be broken. 3/x
To be clear, this is Trump's doing but the investigation will have consequences too. 4/x
The files, records, notes that are going to be required to understand this are not supposed to be open to the public for DECADES. But they'll pried open, the secrets they contain will ruin careers and roil the politics of allied and adversary countries. 5/x
The public servants, with the immense responsibility of continuity in defense of the country, will be exposed to legal, political, and financial consequences that are the stuff of nightmares. Talk to anyone caught up in Iran-Contra, and you'll find a deeply embittered person. 6/x
Much of the way the U.S. makes foreign policy is based on norms and traditions that are--let's say--unique, & will rightly be questioned anew. Just like Iran-Contra, the buck stops with the president but it will be a reckoning for the NSC Staff, and entire interagency too. 7/x
All of this will happen at a time when the United States is facing crises on several fronts, worsening competition from China, and terror threats at home and abroad. 8/x
Doing this well, doing this with minimal collateral damage, doing this with no harm will be hard if not impossible in this day and age. It’s incredibly sad and dangerous. But it’s now time to buckle up. 9/x
