As the day after opened, the only point of agreement around the world was that Donald Trump had ordered stealth B2 bomber strikes against Iran’s three nuclear weapons plants, including the fortified, underground facility at Fordo.
Donald Trump had declared war on Iran, ordering the bombing inside another country, an attempt to shield Israel and the world from a nuclear-armed state that has sponsored terrorism.
There was disagreement about whether the strikes were as effective as Trump claimed, about whether they were legal since Trump did not even bother to brief Congress, never mind ask for a vote for war, and whether there is more conflict to come. Iran launched missiles at Israeli neighborhoods, killing 16.
Donald Trump started a war — or joined the war that Israel had started — without a plan for what happens today or tomorrow or next year. Beyond the president’s rah-rah three-minute speech last night, we have no idea what the goals are aside from destruction of nuclear facilities. Trump made it sound as if Iran could now return to a negotiating table as if not much has happened.
Iran had promised retaliation, but then it seems to be running out of missiles. Some in Iran tried to say damage was not extensive, which lacks credibility, Remarkable reporting from inside Iran, meanwhile, shows that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, is hiding in a bunker and is issuing vocal commands to avoid surveillance. The ayatollah has designated military, government and clerical successors should he be killed.
We do know that Trump sidelined advisers who had to carry out war from the decision, apparently allowing only information from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sway him — amid lots of commentary from Israel that Netanyahu is extending conflicts in Gaza and Iran as much for domestic political survival as for its national security.
Trump somehow expects that war means dropping a few big bombs and walking away without retaliation or commitment of ground forces.
There were no immediate reports of rising atomic contamination, just a lot of belligerent talk based on gut rather than information.
Where’s the Persuasion?
The fact is that Trump went to war without trying to persuade Americans about why or towards what goal. There was no explanation of timing or expectations, or even an acknowledgement that negotiations had proved a failure. In the absence of what Trump called “total capitulation” by Iran, there was only aerial war.
The best explanation television commentators could provide was that recent circumstances diluting the effectiveness of Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi proxy groups, and Iran’s own military defenses, Israel and Trump could move now to deliver bombs that could end any Iranian nuclear threat. It’s hardly the high moral ground.
Rather than address any of the million issues arising from what happens on the day after U.S. bombs hit that Iranian mountain shielding nuclear fuel purification, Trump seems most worried about his ever-present image of himself — both as a successful commander-in-chief whose very word should be feared, and as a peacemaker.
On the day he sent bombs to Iran, he was promoting his own Nobel Peace Prize nomination, pushing for notice for a role in desecrating a war between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, and taking credit for India and Pakistan standing down over Kashmir.
Somehow, Trump still insists that Iran’s supreme leader will bow down to him, another octogenarian, despite protestations that it will never happen.
We have seen how much a political prop that Trump views the military by deploying thousands to the streets of Los Angeles where protest weapons mostly are words and spray can paint with some bottle throwing and carries. Trump’s conclusion is to double down and threaten more U.S. troops on the streets of other cities.
Iran’s retaliation, when it comes, will not be a couple of car fires. Trump is playing with real American lives in what many scenarios suggest could be a quickly spreading conflict across the Middle East and the globe.
The only good news here is that Iran lacks global support, despite its close relations with Russia and China, who were seizing on Trump’s deployment of bombers.
The political right in this country and abroad were signaling that Trump did the world a favor by ending Iran’s nuclear weapons hope, but that view seems short-sighted and self-serving.
Now starts the wait to define tomorrow, led by a president whose ego drives decisions.
“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.
