Inside today’s Daily Journal…

At the very beginning of the Iran War, I told you the following: Whatever the media tells you about what’s happening, do not believe it.

Instead, I said the only thing you can know for certain is that the truth is always the first casualty of war: whatever the administration is claiming is a lie.

And, just as I predicted, we’ve now seen President Trump declare victory more than a dozen times.

We won’t know the truth about why Trump launched this war (it wasn’t nuclear missiles, those were destroyed a year earlier) for probably a decade. And that’s only if the war ends by then. It may not. Most Americans still don’t understand: this war has been going on since Operation Ajax in the 1950s. And Iran is winning.

But before we get those details, I’ve got to show you something you probably don’t know about how the American military became heavily involved in the Middle East in the first place. I’m begging you… pour yourself a cold snack… and take the time to read this bit of history that they’ll never teach in our schools.

Remember George Bush – the first one?

Remember “a thousand points of light” and “this aggression will not stand”? And do you remember “read my lips, no new taxes” – the phrase that won him the election in 1988?

In November 1990, two years after the election, George H.W. Bush signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. The law raised the top individual income tax rate from 28% to 31% and raised the alternative minimum tax, payroll taxes, and excise taxes. The “read my lips” pledge was now officially dead. And the Republican base was furious.

Bush – much like Trump today – needed a war.

The wealthy sheiks of Kuwait, exiled in Saudi Arabia and Washington following the 1990 Iraqi invasion of their country, also needed a war. They had a country to get back, and the only military on Earth capable of getting it back for them belonged to a U.S. president who had to convince a Democratic-controlled Congress to authorize the largest American military deployment since Vietnam.

But how could Bush get this done? His party didn’t control Congress. And his popularity was at an all-time low.

He made a call to “The Powerhouse” – to the most powerful man in Washington, D.C.

His name was Robert Gray.

Gray got his start as White House appointments secretary and then became a cabinet secretary, under President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s. He was one of the very few (and maybe the only) openly homosexual senior government officials. He built his power base in Washington by befriending first ladies.

When John F. Kennedy was elected, Gray left the White House to run the Washington office of Hill & Knowlton, the largest public relations firm in the world. He managed that office for 20 years. Then he became the communications director of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign and co-chairman of Reagan’s inaugural committee.

Once Reagan was elected, Gray became the most powerful lobbyist in D.C. and one of the most powerful political operators in history. He took office space in Georgetown’s old brick power plant on the Potomac River. The address on his letterhead read:

In June 1986, Hill & Knowlton acquired Gray & Company for $21 million. Gray became worldwide chairman of Hill & Knowlton Public Affairs. In the 1980s and into the early 1990s, he was the power behind the throne in Washington.

When the Kuwaitis wanted their country back, they knew who to call.