Paul McLeary and Dan de Luce take a closer look at Michael Flynn’s warped worldview:

But in their book, Flynn and Ledeen take a dimmer view of the Russian intervention in Syria, criticizing Moscow for working with Iran and not focusing enough on defeating the Islamic State.

In fact, the book argues that Iran is the ringleader of a massive international alliance stretching from Europe to Asia to South America — and which is intent on destroying the West.

“The war is on. We face a working coalition that extends from North Korea and China to Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua [bold mine-DL],” Flynn writes. While that is a shockingly wide net, the authors say, “Iran is the linchpin of the alliance, its centerpiece.”

Putin is a willing partner in this cabal, as he “fully intends to do the same thing as, and in tandem with, the Iranians: pursue the war against us. The other alliance members do, too.”

One of the responses to my earlier post on Flynn’s absurd views was to point out that he had a reputation for wanting to cooperate with Russia and was therefore more pragmatic than his crazy rhetoric suggested. That may have been true in the past, but it seems that the anti-Iran obsession that he and Ledeen share now overrides all of that. If Russia cooperates with Iran on anything, Flynn and Ledeen seem to consider that proof of Russia’s membership in the ridiculous “alliance” they have imagined. It appears that Flynn is now on board with viewing Russia as nothing but a menace. Maybe someone else can square a fanatical view that Russia is bent on our destruction with a desire to cooperate with Moscow on security issues, but I don’t see how it can be done.

Even if Flynn didn’t lump Russia and China in with these other states, the deranged and wildly exaggerated view of Iranian influence and power that he claims to hold would still be proof that his foreign policy judgment can’t be trusted. The fact that he believes (or claims to believe) things as obviously false global “alliance” of villains should make it clear that he is happy to indulge and recycle extremely dangerous and foolish ideological talking points. That’s not someone any of us should want working in or advising a future administration.