Yesterday was the moment of maximum thrill:
We did it! We solved the Iran problem! We totally demolished the Iran nuclear threat! Trump is decisive and successful!
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| Triumphant at Fox |
Here are mine:
1. Is it possible that no one in the Iranian military thought this attack might be coming and that the Bunker Buster bombs might work? In the face of threats from Israel and Trump, was Iran so negligent that they didn't remove everything from the obvious target? Really?
2. Isn't it likely that these attacks will have the same effect of strengthening Iranian nationalism that the Pearl Harbor and 9-11 attacks had on the U.S., and the October 7, 2023 attack had on Israel? Might this strengthen the hand of nationalist hawks inside Iran?
3. Didn't we just solidify Iran's position as the victim of American projection of strength, and therefore strengthen Iran's connection to North Korea, China, and Russia? North Korea has nuclear bombs. Even if -- IF -- we destroyed Iran's immediate ability to build one, didn't we make it far more likely that they will buy a few of them from North Korea?
4. Didn't the U.S. just make clear to Iran and the world that the only way to keep a major power from attacking you is to have nuclear bombs yourself? We tolerate North Korea. We leave Pakistan and India alone to fight. They have nuclear bombs. Iran has oil to trade for bombs. Why wouldn't they immediately acquire them at nearly any price? And wouldn't every other country with friendships to China, Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, or someone else?
5. Why would we think that Iran won't retaliate asymmetrically with disruptive terror? One person with explosives hidden in a shoe has Americans taking off their shoes to board an airplane for two decades. How much cost would Americans need to endure if, from out of nowhere, two or three MAGA Republican Senators or Representatives got assassinated at one of their town halls? Or a conservative Supreme Court justice? Imagine the scope and cost of new security systems to protect some 600 people from motivated, suicidal assassins. We assassinated their leaders, and thought it a fine idea. Might they feel the same?
Or if what if a couple of shipping containers were armed to explode when they were in New York's Holland Tunnel or Boston's Ted Williams tunnel? Or if a drone dropped anthrax over a crowd of 100,000 at an Ohio State football game? There are lots of ways to spook Americans and force us to endure enormous cost and inconvenience.
6. Trump is now saying that regime change in Iran would be welcome. I agree it would be, if Iran were to move toward a peaceful, tolerant democracy. Did this bomb lead toward that good end, or away from it?
The bombing this weekend changed the story for Trump. Three days ago the story was feckless TACO-Trump, botched immigration, a Big Beautiful Bill that was floundering, tariff chaos, and Trump losing repeatedly in court including decisions by justices appointed by Republicans. Yesterday the story changed. Trump the man-of-action, Mr. Hero, ridding the world of a dangerous Iran.
That was a one day story.
Beginning today, we start to have questions about how this all plays out. Iran has survived fighting Greeks and Alexander and steppe warriors for millennia. This isn't over until Iran wants it to be over. Maybe they will want that. Did the bombing hasten that day? I question that.
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Just makes me feel like the old German, sitting at the table, dismayed, as his younger fellow citizens rise up to greet a glorious morn, stirred by these lyrics, from “Cabaret”:
ReplyDeleteThe sun on the meadow is summery warm.
The stag in the forest runs free.
But gather together to greet the storm.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
The branch of the linden is leafy and
Green,
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea.
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
2. Isn't it likely that these attacks will have the same effect of strengthening Iranian nationalism that the Pearl Harbor and 9-11 attacks had on the U.S., and the October 7, 2023 attack had on Israel? Might this strengthen the hand of nationalist hawks inside Iran?
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but the Iranian regime is extremely unpopular. From what I have heard on various podcasts, the regime has about 20% support.
3. Didn't we just solidify Iran's position as the victim of American projection of strength, and therefore strengthen Iran's connection to North Korea, China, and Russia? North Korea has nuclear bombs. Even if -- IF -- we destroyed Iran's immediate ability to build one, didn't we make it far more likely that they will buy a few of them from North Korea?
Given the way that Israeli intelligence has penetrated the Iranian regime, anyone interested in selling a nuke to Iran would have to worry that Israel would know about it. Israel is reputed to have around 100 nuclear weapons. If a purchased nuke blew up an Israeli city, and Israeli new who provided that nuke, it's quite likely that country would evaporate in multiple mushroom clouds.
While it may not be possible to deter the jihadist Iranian regime (which has the mentality of a suicide bomber), the country potentially selling a nuke to Iran would likely be deterred by the threat of nuclear annihilation.
5. Why would we think that Iran won't retaliate asymmetrically with disruptive terror? One person with explosives hidden in a shoe has Americans taking off their shoes to board an airplane for two decades. How much cost would Americans need to endure if, from out of nowhere, two or three MAGA Republican Senators or Representatives got assassinated at one of their town halls? Or a conservative Supreme Court justice? Imagine the scope and cost of new security systems to protect some 600 people from motivated, suicidal assassins. We assassinated their leaders, and thought it a fine idea. Might they feel the same?
Remember that this is Donald Trump they are dealing with. Imagine the “restraint” Trump would display if given the opportunity to retaliate for an Iranian terrorist atrocity. Regime change would be just the start of it.
6. Trump is now saying that regime change in Iran would be welcome. I agree it would be, if Iran were to move toward a peaceful, tolerant democracy. Did this bomb lead toward that good end, or away from it?
That's a difficult question to answer. What we can know for sure is that the Iranian path to a nuclear weapon just got longer and more difficult.
A cease fire seems to be coming and maybe a rethinking of things. Let’s hope this regime change talk gets buried. It’s actually looking hopeful right now. Hope Israel doesn’t do something stupid.
ReplyDelete“Iran has survived fighting [various foes] for millennia”.
ReplyDelete“Iran” (from “Aryan”) is a century or so old, a post-Ottoman, post WWI construct. Persia as a people and culture has survived for millennia (as with the Hebrew) if anything despite Arab-originated Islam, not because of it. The so-called Golden Age of Islamic culture, the Abbasid caliphate, founded on Arab conquest, was qualitatively more Persian than Islamic, and ended when the invading Mongols in 1258 slaughtered every inhabitant of the then-largest and most civilized city in the world. The current hostilities are because Islam, centuries after Christ’s death, decided that Jerusalem was an Arab Muslim-owned holy city like Mecca and Medina. “Palestinians” for wider Islamist purposes are expendable shock troops, means to a religious end. Modern Iran’s Islamist regime is a murderous, fundamentalist throwback, no victim of Israel or the West. The post-Ottoman internecine Mossadegh/Pahlavi struggle in Iran, with both sides seeking crucial Western sponsorship, has nothing material to do with the foregoing. Control of Jerusalem is fundamentally a Semitic, Abrahamic family battle. Perhaps Persians can be persuaded to extricate themselves from that. A Zoroastrian reawakening, maybe?