Trump singlehandedly started and stopped a major Middle East war over a span of less than two weeks. But will his heavy handed approach to diplomacy backfire on America?
A lot has happened since I last posted on June 19. You might say I got bogged down in the fog of war. I needed time to process the onslaught of information and misinformation. Sort my thoughts.
If you are given to knee-jerk support for Israel or Iran, do not bother reading this article. It’s meant for rationale people not given to hasty or emotional conclusions.
I hope to give a big picture overview of what the world looks like from 30,000 feet above, doing my best to put my own biases aside and look at things objectively in the wake of the Israel-Iran war and U.S. involvement to date.
Let’s start by saying that, for good or for bad, Donald Trump has emerged in the war’s aftermath appearing to be the most powerful man in the world.
Why do I say this? Trump singlehandedly started and stopped a major Middle East war over a span of less than two weeks. He even named it. He called it the “12-Day War.” Think about that. Who else could pull that off?
Trump admitted he was fully briefed and fully aware of Israel’s plans to attack Iran and he gave them the greenlight to launch the attack, which they did on June 13.
On Saturday, June 21, Trump unleashed the U.S. Air Force to intervene in the war and attack Iran’s three nuclear sites. There are conflicting reports about how successful that attack was in eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, but Trump and his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, both maintain it was totally destroyed. They actually used the word “obliterated.”
Yet, military analysts say it’s not possible to get a full damage assessment in less than 30 days. Trump and Hegseth seem to be saying that the damage was devastating, irreparable, and we should believe that just because they said it.
Then there’s the question of whether Iran even still had its enriched uranium at the sites Trump ordered bombed with a massive bunker-buster payload dropped by B2 bombers. They claim to have moved it all out to a hidden location well before Trump’s bombing raid.
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says the agency can’t locate Iran’s nearly 900 pounds of potentially enriched uranium after the U.S. airstrikes on the Fordow complex.
Maybe Trump will turn out to be right. Maybe he did obliterate it. But it’s simply too early to know and Trump’s angry response to those who question him gives off bad optics. Makes it look like he’s got something to hide.
Then, after intervening on Israel’s behalf and ruffling the feathers of the America-first wing of the GOP, led by Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump suddenly pivoted away from the neocon position of getting involved in another country’s war and returned to his position as the peacemaking non-interventionist.
In a post to his Truth Social platform Monday morning, Trump teased the possibility that he may have become a neocon convert and was now open to “regime change” in Tehran, only to flip back Monday evening, when he again turned on a dime and announced he’d demanded a ceasefire.
By Tuesday morning, he lashed out angrily at Israel for violating his ceasefire demands, and by golly the Israelis seemed to fall into line after that and obey Trump’s order to call off all further bombing missions. It’s been quiet ever since in Tehran.
Just when we thought Trump might be a Bush in disguise, he turned like a chameleon back into his old America-first self.
Let’s face it. It’s hard to pin Trump down. This man seems to be able to wiggle out of tight spots with Houdini-like skills.
I don’t believe the Q nonsense about him playing 4D chess, but I do see how Trump uses elements of deception and unpredictability to his political advantage.
Yesterday he’s Israel’s biggest advocate. Today he’s scolding them for not obeying his commands.
Yesterday he said regime change for Iran might not be a bad idea. Today he says that was never his goal.
Trump deceived Iran into thinking he wanted a negotiated settlement to the nuclear issue when in fact Trump admitted the Israeli attack had long been planned with his full approval.
Trump deceived Israel into thinking he would be on their side to the end, to the point of doing a regime change in Iran. Despite his brief teasing tweet, Trump later said he was never interested in regime change.
This subterfuge has helped Trump get his way to date, but you have to wonder if in the long run it won’t be his undoing. At some point, he ends up with a credibility problem. His word will be completely devoid of any meaning, because no one will know if it’s his actual position or just a decoy, a set up for what will later be an opposite stance. At some point, global leaders are going to get tired of being played. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
One thing is for certain. Trump does not respect the sovereignty of other nation states. He’s the boss and he makes this clear. He likes to set deadlines and give ultimatums, all against the backdrop of military threats. He tells other nations’ leaders very publicly what they better do to make him “happy” and what they better not do to make him “unhappy.” Unhappiness may lead to “terrible consequences.” He loves drama.
If Trump continues to violate nations’ sovereignty, I can see a day when a coalition of nations will reach the point where they get fed up with Trump’s dramatic, almost theatrical approach, and conspire against him with the goal of beating him at his own game. Say one thing and do another.
My second observation is that the First Amendment is in danger under Trump, just as it was under Biden. That’s because Trump, like Biden, is a divider who incites and infuriates Americans on both sides of the political spectrum.
Trump supporters who have spoken critically of Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites have been viciously accused by other Trump supporters of being “anti-Israel,” “anti-Semitic” or even “anti-American.”
Is this true? For sure, some may be anti-Israel, but the majority of MAGA voters who railed against Trump’s decision to intervene in the war are not anti-Israel. They would call themselves anti-Israel First. They believe strongly in the concept of America-First and don’t believe it’s a good idea to spend $150 million or more for the U.S. Air Force to conduct a bombing mission on behalf of a foreign power, whether that be Israel or anyone else.
You can agree or disagree with the America-Firsters, but they have the right to their opinion without being accused of being “anti-American” or “anti-Israel.” By saying “anti-American,” you suggest that your opponent is treasonous. That’s rarely a good idea if the goal is to maintain a semblance of a peaceful society. You get the feeling some on the left and the right would like America to lurch toward civil war.
Many America-Firsters believe it is perfectly OK to sell defensive weapons to Israel and provide it with intelligence, but they don’t believe it’s wise to get directly entangled in kinetic warfare with Israel’s enemies. They believe this is a dangerous and potentially catastrophic scenario, likely to draw in Russia and/or China, resulting in World War III.
The Iranian regime, whether you like it or hate it, has the backing of powerful allies in Russia and China, and Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear after meeting with Iran’s president Sunday that he would stand behind his ally in any way he could, short of direct military intervention. This presumably may have included backing Iran’s plan to block the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which 70 percent of the world’s oil and liquid natural gas flow.
I don’t believe Trump wanted to risk the consequences of shutting off that waterway, so he quickly negotiated a ceasefire.
Some of the more energetic pro-Israel types are livid with Trump for stopping the war before Israel was able to “finish the job.”
But if finishing the job includes a regime change, the war could have gone on for many more weeks, if not months, and risked the involvement of U.S. troops.
And I’m not convinced Israel was making much progress in finishing the job on its own, at least not relative to the amount of munitions it has expended. I know we conservatives were fed a lot of reports about the “collapsing” Islamic regime, but I believe this was largely propaganda.
Israel has to fire off two interceptors for each incoming Iranian missile, and from the reports I’ve seen, Israel only has another couple of weeks worth of interceptors before its Iron Dome is finished. According to military analyst Col. Douglas MacGregor, it will take two years to fully replenish those depleted interceptors.
So, if Israel continued this war another two weeks, it would be left extremely vulnerable to enemy missile fire. Iran exposed the Iron Dome as basically a sieve, with its hit rate falling from 90 percent at the outset of the war to about 60 percent after 10-straight days of shooting at incoming missiles. Given that simple math, how long before other Islamic nations decided to join Iran in the missile barrage?
Israel has already received more damage to its major cities of Tel Aviv, Be’er Sheba and Haifa, than anyone ever thought possible. At least 28 Israelis have been killed and approximately 3,000 injured. Infrastructure damaged.
BiBi Netanyahu was beginning to see the writing on the wall.
According to Col. MacGregor, there’s a good possibility that Netanyahu asked Trump to call off the war and negotiate a ceasefire.
The question is how long will it last? Will the two sides resume the war as soon as they are able to replenish their arsenals?
Will Iran be able to resume its nuclear enrichment program? If it does, it will likely be much more secret about it and much more likely to use it against an Israeli regime it now sees as an aggressive threat to its existence.
In other words, this whole action has been the equivalent of kicking a hornet’s nest and opening Pandora’s Box. Trump and Netanyahu are responsible for that and will have to deal with the ramifications, whether that’s next week, next month, or next year. In short, this war isn’t over. And Israel is in some ways much more vulnerable, because Iran has crushed the mystique of invincibility that surrounded Israel and its Iron Dome. It is penetrable for any nation with a large stock of advanced missiles. We’ve seen the ease with which Iran’s hypersonic missiles have come crashing down on Israel’s cities.
The reports about Israel establishing air dominance over Iran by the second day of the war were vastly over-hyped. If that were the case, Iran would not have been able to continuously launch deadly missiles at the Jewish state.
And this much is also true: The West’s military-industrial complex cannot keep up with that of Russia-China-North Korea when it comes to churning out munitions. They can do it faster and cheaper. Translation: the longer the war dragged on, the greater the chances that the advantage was going to shift from Israel to Iran. You can’t win a war strictly on air power, and Israel knows this. At some point, you will have to send in troops. And the West simply doesn’t have the troops or the ability to restock its munitions right now to carry on a protracted war with Russia-China-Iran.
Given these facts, it would behoove Mr. Trump to pursue a foreign policy based more on respect for national sovereignty that is less given to intrigue and emotional outbursts. These outbursts, whether warranted or not, give the perception of an unstable leader who cannot make up his mind from one day to the next what he wants to do. This is not good for America or the world.
Martin comments: “the West simply doesn’t have the troops or the ability to restock its munitions right now to carry on a protracted war with Russia-China-Iran.” This is one point i will argue as irrelevant: It is no longer necessary to conduct war based on troops and munitions. Newly emergent technologies technologies make WW2 style warfare redundant. China are masters at asymmetric warfare that doesn’t require any military action whatsoever.
Also relevant to the subject and worth a reminder, another goodie from Leo Hoffman:
https://leohohmann.substack.com/p/its-all-a-game-both-sides-serve-the
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