What a splendid little war

Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you're all aware that on June 13, last Friday, the Israel Defense Forces began a systematic bombing campaign against Iran.

One can argue the wisdom of this move. And of course, one cannot trust Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu as far as one can throw him. His main goal is to keep himself in power and out of prison. (Sound familiar?) His ultra-Orthodox coalition partners were ready to bolt the government if Bibi didn't put the kibosh on drafting their useless Torah students, who oftentimes don't even study Torah, live high off the public dole, and don't serve in the military that all other Israeli Jews do, along with the Druze community. So, of course, Netanyahu gave in to their demands, and remained in office.

However, one cannot but marvel at what Israeli forces have done. They've killed most of the top Iranian military leadership. They've taken out top Iranian nuclear scientists. They've destroyed the majority of Iranian ballistic missile launchers. They've achieved air superiority over western Iran and fly unopposed. Never bet against the IDF finding you and blowing you up. After the IDF got caught with its pants down on 7 October, 2023, it had to do something to right the ship. The attacks against Iran have been so successful that Iran's proxy in Lebanon, Hizbullah, issued a statement that it would not be engaging Israeli forces on the border. (Hizbullah has also been decimated in the war it fought against Israel late in 2024, with top leadership and cadres being wiped out.)

I'm old enough that I remember the genesis of the long-running ABC nightly news show, Nightline, as a daily report on the Iranian hostage crisis after the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seizing power in the 1979 revolution. I had no love for the Iranian regime then, and I have none for it now. I tend not to like theocracies which oppress women, ethnic minorities, and sexual minorities. I tend not to like regimes which foment terrorism around the world. And, as a supporter of Israel, I tend to not like regimes which want to commit a second Holocaust. 

Iran's protestations that its nuclear program is peaceful are risible. For peaceful nuclear power, you need uranium enriched to 3%. Iran is doing so to 60%. There's only one reason to do that, and it's not to keep the lights on in Tehran or Isfahan. There is no doubt that Iran is working towards nuclear weapons, and that's something that Israel could not allow.

All of this is to say: I have no problem with Israel launching this war. Never again means just that. 

However, this proved to be a bit of a pickle for our Wretch In Chief. 

Donald Trump has been all about "making a deal" with Iran over its nuclear program. The same deal that President Barack Obama made during his tenure which Trump ripped up, at the urging of Netanyahu. Trump wants that Nobel Peace Prize so badly that he will do almost anything for it. 

The problem is that this louche real estate scam artist has no idea how to go about this. His envoy for both the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine is one of his real estate buddies who has zero diplomatic experience. And, of course, everything bows to his obsequiousness to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Over the past five days, Trump has put on a master class of mood swings. At first he claimed that he had not given Israel the go-ahead for the attack. That was a lie. Then he said that the US would not take part in the war. As of this writing, US Air Force assets are making their way to the combat theater. Israel had a chance to take out current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; reports are that Trump nixed it. But now he's threatening Khamenei with assassination. Like every poseur, Trump sees Israel's smashing success—a success, really, which the state hasn't had since the Six Day War—and wants to get close to what he sees as "winners". He is a rank loser, and wants to stand in the waft of winning. 

His saber-rattling is causing a firestorm among his "America First" following. They hate Jews, and want nothing to do with Israel's wars. They definitely don't want Americans dying in yet another Middle Eastern morass. And while I have confidence in the military, with this civilian leadership things will go south damned quick if we get involved. We have a drunkard as Secretary of Defense, and a draft dodger as commander-in-chief, who was just humiliated at his birthday parade this weekend, where soldiers were shuffle-marching along, obviously not wanting to be doing what they were ordered to do. Trump is petty enough to punish those "losers" by sending them into another Asian war.

Trump wants to get in on this because he always wants to be in with a winner. But a large segment of his base wants nothing of this. They support him because, they thought, he was against "forever wars". That was their mistake. Trump is not for or against anything, unless it benefits him or is a detriment. He has no principles. Everything centers around himself and how it stokes his ego. What the MAGA isolationists are learning is what we who oppose him have always known: He will throw anyone under the bus.