Monday open thread: If you attack Persia, a great empire will fall

Those were the words conveyed to King Croesus by the Oracle at Delphi. Croesus, sure in his power, took it to mean that he would conquer Persia. Instead, his kingdom was swept away, becoming another satrapy.

In the early hours of Saturday, American military forces, along with those of Israel, launched massive air attacks on Iran. Within the first few hours they had killed Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In response, Iran has launched missile attacks against neighboring Arab Gulf states; it even attacked Oman, which had been working as a diplomatic intermediary with the United States to bring about a peace accord.

Of course, there's no "day after" plan. Donald Trump and his inner circle are of the belief that they can effect regime change via air power, something which has never been done in the history of warfare. The closest thing to a "plan" was Trump urging Iranians to rise up and overthrow the mullahs. To quote Zell Miller: With what? Spitwads? The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps holds all the weapons, and its fate is tied inextricably with the broader regime. Indeed, it is the regime. It gleefully slaughtered tens of thousands of Iranian civilians during the brief February uprising. It will never turn its guns on the clerics. And as of now there is no hint that American ground troops will be amassed to launch a land invasion—something which would make Iraq look like the Spanish-American War.

I'm still attempting to process all this. Trump's eruption doesn't even have George W. Bush's rationale of "they tried to kill my dad." This is all about a dying man, losing himself daily in dementia, lashing out and destroying things because he can. And no one in any position of actual power an influence—his cabinet, his supporters, the military—will tell him "no", because they are using him for their own ends. Stephen Miller wants a white enthnostate—one which he'll be surprised to find out won't want Jews. Marco Rubio wants to become viceroy of Cuba. Pete Hegseth wants to live out his warrior fantasies. And Trump himself is a ball of hatred and animus revenging himself on the world.

People knew what he was in 2024, and it wasn't a deal-breaker. If anything, it sealed the deal. And here we are, in the second year of his second term in office, launching the most irresponsible and illegal war ever entered into by this country.

Trump's addled belief that if he kills enough of them Iran will come to the negotiating table is based on nothing but his own sundowning. These are people fighting for their survival; they will destroy everything before giving in. It doesn't matter how many air sorties are carried out; the regime will continue to fight until the costs to the US outweigh any imagined benefits. Now we must worry about terror attacks carried out on home soil, at a time when an incompetent is in charge of internal security, and the department she heads is consumed with deporting fruit cart vendors.

I have no idea how this will end, save that it will end in fire. A great empire will fall.